The Call Of The South

“One day my wife and the two boys went into the mountains to get wild bananas. They cut three heavy bunches and were returning home, when Gâlu and Tui began to quarrel, on the steep mountain path. They came to blows, and their mother, in trying to separate them, lost her footing and fell far below on to a bed of lava. She died quickly.

“The two boys descended and held her dead body in their arms for a long while, and wept together over her face. Then they carried her down the mountain side into the village, and said to the people:—

“‘We, Tui and Gâlu, have killed our mother through our quarrelling. Tell our father Kala-hoi, that we fear to meet him, and now go to expiate our crime.’

“They ran away swiftly; they climbed the mountain side, and, with arms around each other, sprang over the cliff from which their mother had fallen. And when I, and many others with me, found them, they were both dead.”

“Thou hast had a bitter sorrow, Kala-hoi.” “Aye, a bitter sorrow. But yet in my dreams I see them all. And sometimes, even in my work, as I make my nets, I hear the boys’ voices, quarrelling, and my wife saying, ‘Be still, ye boys, lest I call thy father to chastise thee both ‘.”

As the girls brought us the kava Marsh put his hand on the old, smooth, brown pate, and saw that the eyes of the net-maker were filled with tears.

CHAPTER XI ~ THE KANAKA LABOUR TRADE IN THE PACIFIC

The fiat has gone forth from the Australian Commonwealth, and the Kanaka labour trade, as far as the Australian Colonies are concerned, has ceased to exist. For, during the month of November, 1906, the Queensland Government began to deport to their various islands in the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, the last of the Melanesian native labourers employed on the Queensland sugar plantations.

The Kanaka labour traffic, generally termed “black-birding,” began about 1863, when sugar and cotton planters found that natives of the South Sea Islands could be secured at a much less cost than Chinese or Indian coolies. The genesis of the traffic was a tragedy, and filled the world with horror.

Three armed Peruvian ships, manned by gangs of cut-throats, appeared in the South Pacific, and seized over four hundred unfortunate natives in the old African slave-trading fashion, and carried them away to work the guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. Not a score of them returned to their island homes—the rest perished under the lash and brutality of their cruel taskmasters.

Towards 1870 the demand for South Sea Islanders became very great. They were wanted in the Sandwich Islands, in Tahiti and Samoa; for, naturally enough, with their ample food supply, the natives of these islands do not like plantation work, or if employed demand a high rate of pay. Then, too, the Queensland and Fijian sugar planters joined in the quest, and at one time there were over fifty vessels engaged in securing Kanakas from the Gilbert Islands, the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, and the great islands near New Guinea.

At that time there was no Government supervision of the traffic. Any irresponsible person could fit out a ship, and bring a cargo of human beings into port—obtained by means fair or foul—and no questions were asked.

Very soon came the news of the infamous story of the brig Carl and her fiendish owner, a Dr. Murray, who with half a dozen other scoundrels committed the most awful crimes—shooting down in cold blood scores of natives who refused to be coerced into “recruiting”. Some of these ruffians went to the scaffold or to long terms of imprisonment; and from that time the British Government in a maundering way set to work to effect some sort of supervision of the British ships employed in the “blackbirding” trade.

A fleet of five small gunboats (sailing vessels) were built in Sydney, and were ordered to “overhaul and inspect every blackbirder,” and ascertain if the “blackbirds” were really willing recruits, or had been deported against their will, and were “to be sold as slaves”. And many atrocious deeds came to light, with the result, as far as Queensland was concerned, that every labour ship had to carry a Government agent, who was supposed to see that no abuses occurred. Some of these Government agents were conscientious men, and did their duty well; others were mere tools of the greedy planters, and lent themselves to all sorts of villainies to obtain “recruits” and get an in camera bonus of twenty pounds for every native they could entice on board.

Owing to my knowledge of Polynesian and Melane-sian dialects, I was frequently employed as “recruiter” on many “blackbirders”—French vessels from Noumea in New Caledonia, Hawaiian vessels from Honolulu, and German and English vessels sailing from Samoa and Fiji, and in no instance did I ever have any serious trouble with my “blackbirds” after they were once on board the ship of which I was “recruiter”.

Let me now describe an ordinary cruise of a “blackbirder” vessel—an honest ship with an honest skipper and crew, and, above all, a straight “recruiter”—a man who takes his life in his hands when he steps out, unarmed, from his boat, and seeks for “recruits” from a crowd of the wildest savages imaginable.

Labour ships carry a double crew—one to work the ship, the other to man the boats, of which there are usually four on ordinary-sized vessels. They are whale-boats, specially adapted for surf work. The boats’ crews are invariably natives—Rotumah men, Samoans, or Savage Islanders. The ship’s working crew also are in most cases natives, and the captain and officers are, of course, white men.

The ‘tween decks are fitted to accommodate so many “blackbirds,” and, at the present day, British labour ships are models of cleanliness, for the Government supervision is very rigid; but in former days the hold of a “blackbirder” often presented a horrid spectacle—the unfortunate “recruits” being packed so closely together, and at night time the odour from their steaming bodies was absolutely revolting as it ascended from the open hatch, over which stood two sentries on the alert; for sometimes the “blackbirds” would rise and attempt to murder the ship’s company. In many cases they did so successfully—especially when the “blackbirds” came from the same island, or group of islands, and spoke the same language. When there were, say, a hundred or two hundred “recruits” from various islands, dissimilar in their language and customs, there was no fear of such an event, and the captain and officers and “recruiter” went to sleep with a feeling of security.

Let us now suppose that a “blackbirder” (obnoxious name to many recruiters) from Samoa, Fiji, or Queensland, has reached one of the New Hebrides, or Solomon Islands. Possibly she may anchor—if there is an anchorage; but most likely she will “lie off and on,” and send away her boats to the various villages.

On one occasion I “worked” the entire length of one side of the great island of San Cristoval, visiting nearly every village from Cape Recherché to Cape Surville. This took nearly three weeks, the ship following the boats along the coast. We would leave the ship at daylight, and pull in shore, landing wherever we saw a smoke signal, or a village. When I had engaged, say, half a dozen recruits, I would send them off on board, and continue on my way. At sunset I would return on board, the boats would be hoisted up, and the ship either anchor, or heave-to for the night. On this particular trip the boats were only twice fired at, but no one man of my crews was hit.

The boats are known as “landing” and “covering” boats. The former is in command of an officer and the recruiter, carries five hands (all armed) and also the boxes of “trade” goods to be exhibited to the natives as specimens of the rest of the goods on board, or perhaps some will be immediately handed over as an “advance” to any native willing to recruit as a labourer in Queensland or elsewhere for three years, at the magnificent wage of six pounds per annum, generally paid in rubbishing articles, worth about thirty shillings.

The “covering” boat is in charge of an officer, or reliable seaman. She follows the “landing” boat at a short distance, and her duty is to cover her retreat if the natives should attack the landing boat by at once opening fire, and giving those in that boat a chance of pushing off and getting out of danger, and also she sometimes receives on board the “recruits” as they are engaged by the recruiter—if the latter has not been knocked on the head or speared.

On nearing the beach, where the natives are waiting, the officer in the landing-boat swings her round with his steer oar, and the crew back her in, stern first, on to the beach. The recruiter then steps out, and the crew carry the trade chests on shore; then the boat pushes off a little, just enough to keep afloat, and obtrusive natives, who may mean treachery, are not allowed to come too near the oars, or take hold of the gunwale, Meanwhile the covering boat has drawn in close to the first boat, and the crew, with their hands on their rifles, keep a keen watch on the landing boat and the wretched recruiter.

The recruiter, if he is a wise man, will not display any arms openly. To do so makes the savage natives either sulky or afraid, and I never let them see mine, which I, however, always kept handy in a harmless-looking canvas bag, which also contained some tobacco, cut up in small pieces, to throw to the women and children—to put them in a good temper.

The recruiter opens his trade box, and then asks if there is any man or woman who desires to become rich in three years by working on a plantation in Fiji, Queensland, or Samoa.

If he can speak the language, and does not lose his nerve by being surrounded by hundreds of ferocious and armed savages, and knowing that at any instant he may be cut down from behind by a tomahawk, or speared, or clubbed, he will get along all right, and soon find men willing to recruit Especially is this so if he is a man personally known to the natives, and has a good reputation for treating his “blackbirds” well on board the ship. The ship and her captain, too, enter largely into the matter of a native making up his mind to “recruit,” or refuse to do so.

Sometimes there may be among the crowd of natives several who have already been to Queensland, or elsewhere, and desire to return. These may be desirable recruits, or, on the other hand, may be the reverse, and have bad records. I usually tried to shunt these fellows from again recruiting, as they often made mischief on board, would plan to capture the ship, and such other diversions, but I always found them useful as touts in gaining me new recruits, by offering these scamps a suitable present for each man they brought me.

I always made it a practice never to recruit a married man, unless his wife—or an alleged wife—came with him, nor would I take them if they had young children—who would simply be made slaves of in their absence. It required the utmost tact and discretion to get at the truth in many cases, and very often on going on board after a day of toil and danger I would be sound asleep, when a young couple would swim off—lovers who had eloped—and beg me to take them away in the ship. This I would never do until I had seen the local chief, and was assured that no objection would be made to their leaving.

(When I was recruiting “black labour” for the French and German planters in Samoa and Tahiti, I was, of course, sailing in ships of those nationalities, and had no worrying Government agent to harass and hinder me by his interference, for only ships under British colours were compelled to carry “Government agents”.)

But I must return to the recruiter standing on the beach, surrounded by a crowd of savages, exercising his patience and brains.

Perhaps at the end of an hour or so eight or ten men are recruited, and told to either get into one of the boats or go off to the ship in canoes. The business on shore is then finished, the harassed recruiter wipes his perspiring brow, says farewell to the people, closes his trade chest, and steps into his landing boat. The officer cries to the crew, “Give way, lads,” and off goes the boat.

Then the covering boat comes into position astern of the landing boat, for one never knew the moment that some enraged native on shore might, for having been rejected as “undesirable,” take a snipe-shot at one of the boats. Only two men pull in the covering boat—the rest of the crew sit on the thwarts, with their rifles ready, facing aft, until the boats are out of range.

That is what is the ordinary day’s work among the Solomon, New Hebrides, and other island groups of the Western Pacific But very often it was—and is now—very different. The recruiter may be at work, when he is struck down treacherously from behind, and hundreds of concealed savages rush out, bent on slaughter. Perhaps the eye of some ever-watchful man in the covering boat has seen crouching figures in the dense undergrowth of the shores of the bay, and at once fires his rifle, and the recruiter jumps for his boat, and then there is a cracking of Winchesters from the covering boat, and a responsive banging of overloaded muskets from the shore.

Only once was I badly hurt when “recruiting”. I had visited a rather big village, but could not secure a single recruit, and I had told the officer to put off, as it was no use our wasting our time. I then got into the boat and was stooping down to get a drink from the water-beaker, when a sudden fusillade of muskets and arrows was opened upon us from three sides, and I was struck on the right side of the neck by a round iron bullet, which travelled round just under the skin, and stopped under my left ear. Some of my crew were badly hit, one man having his wrist broken by an iron bullet, and another received a heavy lead bullet in the stomach, and three bamboo arrows in his chest, thigh and shoulder. He was more afraid of the arrows than the really dangerous wound in his stomach, for he thought they were poisoned, and that he would die of lockjaw—like the lamented Commodore Goodenough, who was shot to death with poisoned arrows at Nukapu in the Santa Cruz Group.

The skipper nicked out the bullet in my neck with his pen-knife, and beyond two very unsightly scars on each side of my neck, I have nothing of which to complain, and much to be thankful for; for had I been in ever so little a more erect position, the ball would have broken my neck—and some compositors in printing establishments earned a little less money.

CHAPTER XII ~ MY FRIENDS, THE ANTHROPOPHAGI

Mr. Rudyard Kipling has spoken of what he terms “the Great American Pie Belt,” which runs through certain parts of the United States, the people of which live largely on pumpkin pie; in the South Pacific there is what may be vulgarly termed the Great “Long Pork” Belt, running through many groups of islands, the savage inhabitants of which are notorious cannibals. This belt extends from the New Hebrides north-westerly to the Solomon Archipelago, thence more westerly to New Ireland and New Britain, the coasts of Dutch, German, and British New Guinea; and then, turning south, embraces a considerable portion of the coast line of Northern Australia. Forty years ago Fiji could have been included, but cannibalism in that group had long since ceased; as also in New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands.

The British, French and German Governments are doing their best to stamp out the practice. Ships of war patrol the various groups, and wherever possible, headhunting and man-eating excursions are suppressed; but some of the islands are of such a vast extent that only the coastal tribes are affected. In the interior—practically unknown to any white man—there is a very numerous population of mountaineer tribes, who are all cannibals, and will remain so for perhaps another fifty years, unless, as was done in Fiji by Sir Arthur Gordon (now Lord Stanmore), a large armed force is sent to subdue these people, destroy their towns, and bring them to settle on the coast, where they may be subjected to missionary (and police) influence.

During my trading and “blackbirding” voyages, I made the acquaintance, and indeed in some cases the friendship, of many cannibals, and at one time, when I was doing shore duty, I lived for six months in a large cannibal village on the north coast of the great island of New Britain, or Tombara, as the natives call it I had not the slightest fear of being converted into “Long Pig” (puaka kumi) for the chief, a hideous, but yet not bad-natured savage, named Bobâran, in consideration for certain gifts of muskets, powder, bullets, etc, and tobacco, became responsible for my safety with his own people during my stay, but would not, of course, guarantee to protect me from the people of other districts (even though he might not be at enmity with them) if I ventured into their territory.

This was the usual agreement made by white traders who established themselves on shore under the ægis of a native ruler. Very rarely was this confidence abused. Generally the white men, sailors or traders who have been (and are even now) killed and eaten, have been cut off by savages other than those among whom they lived—very often by mountaineers.

Bobâran and all his people were noted cannibals. He was continually at war with his neighbours on the opposite side of the bay, where there were three populous towns, and there was much fighting, and losses on both sides. During my stay there were over thirty people eaten at, or in the immediate vicinity of, my village. Some of these were taken alive, and then slaughtered on being brought in; others had been killed in battle. But about eighteen months before I came to live at this place, Bobâran had had a party of twenty of his people cut off by the enemy—and every one of these were eaten.

I parted from Bobâran on very friendly terms. I should have stayed longer, but was suffering from malarial fever.

After recruiting my health in New Zealand, I joined a labour vessel, sailing out of Samoa, and during the ten months I served on her as recruiter I had some exceedingly exciting adventures with cannibals among the islands off the coast of German New Guinea, and on the mainland.

On our way to the “blackbirding grounds” we sighted the lofty Rossel Island—the scene of one of the most awful cannibal tragedies ever known. It is one of the Louisiade Archipelago, and is at the extreme south end of British New Guinea. It presents a most enchanting appearance, owing to its verdured mountains (9,000 feet), countless cataracts, and beautiful bays fringed with coco-palms and other tropical trees, amidst which stand the thatched-roofed houses of the natives. I will tell the story of Rossel Island in as few words as possible:—

In 1852 a Peruvian barque, carrying 325 Chinese coolies for Tahiti, was wrecked on the island; the captain and crew took to the four boats, and left the Chinamen to shift for themselves. Hundreds of savage natives rushed the vessel, killed a few of the coolies, and drove the rest on shore, where for some days they were not molested, the natives being too busy in plundering the ship. But after this was completed they turned their attention to their captives, marshalled them together, made them enter canoes and carried them off to a small, but fertile island. Here they were told to occupy a deserted village, and do as they pleased, but not to attempt to leave the island. The poor Chinamen were overjoyed, little dreaming of what was to befal them. The island abounded with vegetables and fruit, and the shipwrecked men found no lack of food. But they discovered that they were prisoners—every canoe had been removed. This at first caused them no alarm, but when at the end of a week their jailers appeared and carried off ten of their number, they became restless. And then almost every day, two, three or more were taken away, and never returned. Then the poor wretches discovered that their comrades were being killed and eaten day by day!

To escape from the island was impossible, for it was four miles from the mainland, and they had no canoes, and the water was literally alive with sharks. Some of them, wild with terror, built a raft out of dead timber, and tried to put to sea. They were seen by the Rossel Islanders, pursued and captured, and slaughtered for the cannibal ovens, which were now never idle. Some poor creatures, who could swim, tried to cross to another little island two miles away, but were devoured by sharks. Without arms to defend their lives, they saw themselves decimated week by week, for whenever the natives came to seize some of their number for their ovens they came in force.

Six or seven months passed, and then one day the French corvette Phoque (if I am not mistaken in the name) appeared off the island. She had been sent by the Governor of New Caledonia to ascertain if any of the Chinamen were still on the island, or if all had escaped. Two only survived. They were seen running along the beach to meet the boats from the corvette, and were taken on board half-demented—all the rest had gone into the stomach of the cannibals or the sharks.

At the present time the natives of Rossel Island are subjects of King Edward VII., and are included in the government of the Possession of British New Guinea; have, I believe, a resident missionary, and several traders, and are well behaved They would cast up their eyes in pious horror if any visitor now suggested that they had once been addicted to “long pig “.

Ten days after passing Rossel Island, we were among the islands of Dampier and Vitiaz Straits, which separate the western end of New Britain from the east coast of New Guinea. It was an absolutely new ground for recruiting “blackbirds” and our voyage was in reality but an experiment. We (the officers and I) knew that the natives were a dangerous lot of savage cannibals, speaking many dialects, and had hitherto only been in communication with an occasional whaleship, or a trading, pearling, or, in the “old” colonial days, a sandal-wood-seeking vessel. But we had no fear of being cut off. We had a fine craft, with a high freeboard, so that if we were rushed by canoes, the boarders would find some trouble in clambering on deck; on the main deck we carried four six-pounders, which were always kept in good order and could be loaded with grape in a few minutes. Then our double crew were all well armed with Sharp’s carbines and the latest pattern of Colt’s revolvers; and, above all, the captain had confidence in his crew and officers, and they in him. I, the recruiter, had with me as interpreter a very smart native of Ysabel Island (Solomon Group) who, five years before, had been wrecked on Rook Island, in Vitiaz Straits, had lived among the cannibal natives for a year, and then been rescued by an Austrian man-of-war engaged on an exploration voyage. He said that he could make himself well understood by the natives—and this I found to be correct.

We anchored in a charming little bay on Rook Island (Baga), and at once some hundreds of natives came off and boarded us in the most fearless manner. They at once recognised my interpreter, and danced about him and yelled their delight at seeing him again. Every one of these savages was armed with half a dozen spears, a jade-headed club, or powerful bows and arrows, and a wooden shield. They were a much finer type of savage than the natives of New Britain, lighter in colour, and had not so many repulsive characteristics. Neither were they absolutely nude—each man wearing a girdle of dracaena leaves, and although they were betel-nut chewers, and carried their baskets of areca nuts and leaves and powdered lime around their necks, they did not expectorate the disgusting scarlet juice all over our decks as the New Britain natives would have done.

We noticed that many of them had recently inflicted wounds, and learned from them that a few days previously they had had a great fight with the natives of Tupinier Island (twenty miles to the east) and had been badly beaten, losing sixteen men. But, they proudly added, they had been able to carry off eleven of the enemy’s dead, and had only just finished eating them. The chiefs brother, they said, had been badly wounded by a bullet in the thigh (the Tupinier natives had a few muskets) and was suffering great pain, as the “doctors” could not get it out.

Now here was a chance for me—something which would perhaps lead to our getting a number of these cannibals to recruit for Samoa. I considered myself a good amateur surgeon (I had had plenty of practice) and at once volunteered to go on shore, look at the injured gentleman and see what I could do. My friend Bobâran in New Britain I had cured of an eczemic disorder by a very simple remedy, and he had been a grateful patient. Here was another chance, and possibly another grateful patient; and this being a case of a gunshot wound, I was rather keen on attending to it, for the Polynesians and Melanesians will stand any amount of cutting about and never flinch (and there are no coroners in the South Seas to ask silly questions if the patient dies from a mistake of the operator).