By Major D. G. Prendergast.
A grim story of love, hate, and relentless vengeance. "The events occurred in the early 'eighties," writes Major Prendergast. "I learnt all the facts and met Mahkmoud, the central character, in the course of my official duties."
The first act of this tragedy of real life took place at a small village a few miles south of Assiout, the chief town of what in the 'eighties was known as Upper Egypt.
It was the end of September, after the Nile had overflowed its banks, and the crops were full and green. The time was evening, and Mahkmoud, one of the principal actors in my story, was sitting on the sun-dried mud wall of one of the shadoofs (irrigation wells) which watered his land. He was at this time a man of some consequence in his village, and for a fellah was counted rich, being the owner of a fair-sized piece of fertile land. He was a man over six feet in height, with the broad sinewy back and shoulders and general physical strength which is the heritage of the fellaheen race of the Nile Valley. His head was large and bullet-shaped, his neck thick-set, his eyes keen and deep-set, while his mouth and chin plainly indicated that he was a man possessed of great determination and of unusually strong passions.
To-night he sat and gazed moodily into the dark, transparent waters of the rushing stream, black thoughts of vengeance crowding into his brain, for he was in sore trouble. Of late the village gossips had been busy connecting the name of his young wife, Rukhia, with one Abdul, the ne'er-do-weel of the place.
In a small community no secret can remain hidden for long, and although, naturally, Mahkmoud would be the last to hear of the scandal, still it was only a matter of time before it reached his ears. Only to-day his friends had hinted to him that his wife was, perhaps, not quite all he thought her to be, and the name of Abdul was at the same time carelessly introduced into the conversation. Now, Abdul had only been back in his native village for six months; for the past seven years, previous to his return, he had been serving his Highness the Khedive as a conscript soldier in the Egyptian army.
The fellaheen of Egypt make docile, tractable soldiers, amenable to discipline, keen on all routine work and peace soldiering, but lacking that élan and dash which are so valuable an asset in time of war. Even in the Egyptian army, however, there are bad characters, and for these there is a special corps—a sort of "Lost Legion." This corps is known as the Discipline Company, and the life led by its members is little better than that of the convict. Their uniform is of a much brighter yellow than khaki, and each man wears an iron ring welded round his right ankle. Abdul had finished the last three years of his service in this ill-starred company. News spreads in a mysterious way from village to village along the hundreds of miles from Cairo to the frontier, and tidings of Abdul's doings during his soldiering career had somehow reached his native village. It was not of a sort which was likely to ensure a warm welcome for him on his return.
During the three years Abdul served out his time in the Discipline Company he became intimately acquainted with many men who were among the scum of the earth. When at length the period of service in this Legion of the Lost was concluded, and its members returned to the world and civil life, as often as not they led lives of crime and infamy which generally brought them within reach of the law, so that most of them ended their days in the convict prisons of Tourah or Tokar, and the very worst of all in the hulk moored in Trinkitat Bay.
Years ago, before the lot of the conscript soldier had fallen on Abdul, Mahkmoud and he had had bitter quarrels over the question of the irrigation of their respective lands, which were adjacent to each other.
The water of the Nile is the very life-blood of the fellaheen, and he who secretly or by stealth diverts the water from his neighbour's land on to his own is guilty of a heinous crime. In days gone by Mahkmoud had more than sufficient reason to suspect that the water from his shadoofs and sakiehs had helped to irrigate his neighbour's land. Many angry words had been exchanged in consequence, and a lifelong feud had been established between the two men.
On the evening of the day this story opens, Mahkmoud sat and brooded over all he had lately heard. Many little incidents in connection with his young wife, to which at the time he had hardly given a passing thought, now seemed to rise up clearly before him. He realized that within the past six months his wife had changed from a pattern of domestic drudgery—the usual lot of a fellah's wife—to a listless, slovenly woman who found work too much for her. Often on his return from a long day's labour in the fields he would find the evening meal not yet ready, the fuel not gathered, and the ziehs (earthen water-jars) only half filled. Even his two little boys, who had hitherto been the joy of their mother's life, did not seem any longer to interest her. Mahkmoud also remembered, now that his jealousy was aroused, how frequently on his return he found his wife out—absent from home at hours when it is unusual for women to be away from their domestic duties. There had even been an occasion when Mahkmoud had come home in the grey dawn from watching his crops by night and scaring away wild animals, when he found her outside the wall which surrounded his house. At the time he thought it strange, but was satisfied with some paltry excuse. Now, all these incidents loomed large before his gaze, and he understood their meaning. To-night he vowed he would take a terrible revenge—revenge upon his hated enemy and on his faithless wife. He would wait and watch; he would bide his time. When it came, the punishment he would mete out to the guilty pair would live in the memory of his village for all time.
About a month before the events just described a stranger arrived in the village, and the first man he met happened to be Mahkmoud. To him the new-comer told a plausible story of how he had worked for the eccentric sawerheen (white travellers) who were always digging amongst the ruins of the ancient temples. Having scraped together enough money to enable him to return to his native village near Wady Halfa, he was on his journey back, when he had fallen amongst thieves and lost all he possessed. He asked Mahkmoud to help him by giving him employment during the season of the crops. For a few pence a day he worked for Mahkmoud—irrigating the fields, watching his flocks of goats by day, and taking his turn in frightening off wild animals from the growing crops at night. He slept in a mud hovel with the goats, inside the sun-baked mud wall which surrounded Mahkmoud's dwelling-houses. He was a taciturn man, with an evil-looking countenance. He spoke to no one, and no one spoke to him. If mentioned in conversation, men referred to him as "ibn el kelp" (son of a dog), and mothers warned their children to flee from his path should they meet him, and on no account whatever to look at him, for he was a man possessed of "the evil eye" and would cast a spell over them.
There was one man in the village, however, who knew this stranger, and the stranger knew him. Abdul and the goatherd had toiled together for many a weary day, with the iron ring on their ankles, in the ranks of the Discipline Company. By tacit consent they never openly recognised one another, and, as far as anyone knew, had never been seen to speak to each other. Both inwardly feared one another and wondered when the other would give him away. As a cat watches a mouse so did this stranger watch Abdul, and it was not very long before he had made himself acquainted with information for which it seemed that either Abdul, his enemy, or Mahkmoud, his master, might think it worth while to pay him handsomely.
One night, when his employer was away keeping watch over his crops, he lay awake in his shed and heard footsteps steal silently past where he lay. Then he heard the door of the walled enclosure quietly opened and shut. Scenting that something was amiss, the goatherd stranger rose and silently went in pursuit. Seeing nothing, he hid himself amongst the mimosa bushes, which grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the door to the river-bank. Presently, from his place of concealment, he beheld two forms walking up from the direction of the river towards the house, and as they slowly passed the spot where he lay hidden the watcher, by the light of the stars, recognised beyond a doubt who the couple were. "Allah is great, and Mohammed is His Prophet," murmured the stranger. "My enemy has now been delivered into my hands. I will demand from the dog the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds, and if he will not give them to me—then my employer knows all."
As the door softly closed, out of the deep shadow of the wall one figure retraced its steps along the path towards the river. It was Abdul. When he arrived at the spot where the path was narrowed by the mimosa bushes, the watcher rose up and, stepping to the path, confronted his man. Speaking in a low, hissing voice, he said, "Abdul, you know me. I am a man of few words, and my words to you this night are few."
Abdul, taken unawares, stood still, trembling, and then, recognising who it was that spoke, answered, "What do you want with me at this hour of night, you offspring of a snake?"
"I will tell you," the stranger replied. "Since my sojourn here I have been employed in watching my master's property; both by day and by night I have driven the noxious animals away. But there is one foul bird of night that I have not driven away, and that, O Abdul, is yourself. Now I will make this compact with you, who are in my power. If you will give me the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds at noon to-morrow I will go forth from here and return no more; and my lips shall be for ever sealed. This I will swear by the beard of the Prophet."
"HE MOVED FORWARD AS THOUGH TO PASS HIS MAN, WHEN THE KNIFE FLASHED DOWNWARDS."
The stranger folded his arms and stood silent, awaiting the reply.
After a pause, which to both men seemed an age, Abdul replied, "And if I refuse this price of blackmail, how then? What can you do—a stranger and a dog? Who, think you, will believe your perjured evidence?"
The goatherd did not immediately reply, and for a space the two men stood confronting each other. Abdul was wearing a gallibeah—a long cloak reaching from the neck to the feet, made of thick cotton stuff, with very large loose sleeves. The stranger was dressed, as he slept, in a cotton shirt and drawers. So it happened that Abdul was able, unseen by his foe, to draw his knife from its sheath. (All the natives of this country carry a big knife in a sheath strapped to the left arm, just above the elbow.)
After a few moments had elapsed the stranger laughed a short, derisive laugh, and, putting out his arm, as if to brush Abdul aside, said, "You fool! At the rising of to-morrow's sun Mahkmoud shall know all." With that he moved forward as though to pass his man, when the knife flashed downwards, and with a choking, gurgling sound, followed by a deep sigh, he sank to the earth, never to rise again!
Abdul's knife had been driven home to the hilt through his heart, and the luckless goatherd's life-blood gushed out in a dark red stream, spreading over the pathway. Abdul, having made sure that there was no chance of life remaining, dragged the corpse into the bushes, and hurriedly returned to the door in the shadow of the wall. Here he imitated the cry of the night-bird—the preconcerted signal between himself and Rukhia. After a pause the door was quietly opened once more, and in the dark shadow Abdul hurriedly told her all that had happened. Before they parted it was arranged as to what should be said and done on the morrow. The blood-stained knife was hidden by the wife in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. Her part of the crime was that she should gain possession of her husband's knife after he had sunk into the deep sleep which usually came upon him after a night of watching, and throw it into the river.
The sun had scarcely risen above the line of the sand-hills on the eastern bank before the whole village was astir and excitedly discussing what was undoubtedly a murder. The Yushbashi (captain) of police at Assiout was in due course informed. He and his men arrived later, and after much talking and taking down of numerous notes which had little bearing on the subject he ordered the body of the murdered man to be carried to Assiout, almost half the population of the village accompanying him as well.
ASSIOUT, WHERE MAHKMOUD WAS TRIED FOR HIS LIFE.
From a Photograph.
"The Mudir (the Egyptian governor) shall decide who is the culprit," said the officer.
The police, of course, had to find a culprit, and also procure sufficient evidence to convict him, and this they proceeded to do. As the result of their investigations the unhappy Mahkmoud was placed on his trial for the murder. He pleaded "Not guilty," but otherwise had no defence, admitting that he was absent from home from nine o'clock on the night of the murder until about half-past four the next morning. The police produced evidence that the murdered man and Mahkmoud were not on good terms, that Mahkmoud's shoes were covered with blood, and that they exactly fitted the footsteps on the path leading from the scene of the murder to the house. It was also hinted that there was an intrigue between the stranger and the wife. Finally, the prosecution produced the blood-stained knife and sheath, which had been discovered in a rat-hole in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. In addition, two important witnesses were called. One was Abdul, who swore that on the fatal night he was watching his crops some five hundred yards from the spot where the body was found, and heard voices in angry altercation some two hours before sunrise.
Rukhia, Mahkmoud's wife, then appeared, to everyone's astonishment, and told a graphic story of how she was awakened some little time before sunrise, and heard the voices of the stranger and her husband in a heated argument. Mahkmoud then returned, much excited and swearing fiercely. In the morning she noticed the blood-stained shoes and missed the knife from the shelf where it was usually put. Later it was found by the police who searched the house.
Mahkmoud, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was found guilty—mainly on the circumstantial evidence of his wife and Abdul. He was sentenced to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for the term of his natural life.
It would take too long to follow this miserable but innocent convict through the weary years he spent working out his awful doom. To be able to realize what an Egyptian convict's life is like one must at least have seen the prisons and the hulk. The first five years were spent in the prison at Tourah. The very fact that this man—so strong willed and passionate by nature—was innocent drove him to the verge of frenzy, and having become known as a dangerous and violent convict he found himself confined first in a solitary cell, and then drafted to the prison at Tokar. Here he was compelled to associate with the very worst criminals in Egypt; and, breaking the rules again, he was sentenced to undergo the remainder of his imprisonment on board the hulk in Trinkitat Bay.
It is enough to say that this bay is on the Red Sea littoral, a terrible place for any living man, white or black, to have to spend his life. It was in this hulk that the writer saw Mahkmoud. Escape from this floating jail is practically impossible. It is moored some seven hundred yards from the shore, and the water teems with sharks, who do not allow much to escape their observant eyes as they continually cruise round the hulk.
Many times poor wretches doomed to this living grave have escaped from Tokar Prison. It is easy, for the prison is only built of mud and wattle, and the warders are very careless. But up to the time I shall describe later no prisoner had been known to get far away.
Nomad tribes of Somalis and Arabs (the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" of the days of our fierce fights at El Teb and Tamai, Tokar and McNeill's Zareba) live and move all round this part of the bush, occupying the few wells there are, right up to the Erkoweit hills. The Government give the head-men of these tribes substantial rewards for each fugitive they capture and bring in, so that the convict's chance of escape is infinitesimal. They must go to these tribes for food and water, or die of hunger and thirst in the desert.
The Nile is the very life and soul of the Egyptian fellah, and the captives of the Kings of Assyria, who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept, could not have longed more passionately for their Jewish homes than did these poor outcasts to see once more their native villages and taste "the sweet waters of the Nile."
"If I can but escape and reach those distant hills," they told themselves, "then I can easily walk over them. There may still be a few miles of desert sand to cross, but it will surely at length bring me once again to the great beloved river, our Father Nile." This remark has been made to the writer times without number when visiting the convict gangs at work in the course of his official duties. But one and all of the hapless wretches reckoned without the far-stretching, arid sands or the prowling nomads, ever on the watch for fugitives.
One hot, still, starlight night, towards the end of the seventh year of his penal servitude, whilst the sentry was snugly rolled up in his blanket, Mahkmoud slipped overboard from the hulk and swam shorewards. He had seen the sharks cruising slowly round the hulk for many a long day, but, as he said in after years when telling the story of his escape, "Better become food for sharks than endure a living death." As luck would have it, he reached the beach safely, and after wandering towards the distant hills all that day and night he was overcome with hunger and thirst and, resigning himself to his fate, lay down under the sparse shadow of a thorn-bush to die. But Providence decreed otherwise. He was found by a party of raiding Baggara horsemen, who carried him off to Adharama, the head-quarters of the celebrated Dervish Emir, Osman Digna.
For the next two years Mahkmoud was a household slave in Osman Digna's house. While he was there the Khalifa sent for his Governor of the Eastern Sudan, and Mahkmoud accompanied his master. So once more, after nine long years, he again set eyes on the River Nile.
Even now it was almost impossible to escape, for the wild Arab tribes who at this time held sway over the country from Sarras to Fashoda loathed and despised the Egyptian fellah, and no one would help him. After three more years of bondage, however, spent between the Eastern Sudan and Omdurman, Mahkmoud escaped, joined a caravan which was bringing gum and ostrich feathers to the Egyptian frontier, and at last found himself on the Egyptian Nile at Assouan.
By this time "the murder," as it was generally referred to, had almost been forgotten by the villagers. If it was mentioned at all it was as an historical event, generally to fix the date of some other event which had occurred before or since.
The people, too, had almost forgotten Mahkmoud's existence; he was either dead or as good as dead. Abdul, in due course, had taken Rukhia to his harem as a wife, and she was the mother of his three children. After Mahkmoud's transportation his brother, as is usually the case when a widow re-marries, had taken over the care of his nephews, together with his brother's land and property.
It was again September, and the hour before sunset, when the women of the village had gone to draw water for their households. Abdul was sitting in his house, and his three children were asleep in the adjoining room. Suddenly a shadow was thrown across the room. Abdul turned quickly, half rising as he did so, to see who it was. But in an instant strong hands gripped his throat, and a voice, to him a terrible one, hoarsely hissed into his ear, "It is I, Mahkmoud, who after many years have not forgotten you!" Then a knife flashed for one moment before his terrified eyes, and in another second Abdul lay dead upon the floor, dead as his victim had lain in the path that fateful night twelve years before!
Later Rukhia returned. The room was almost dark and, before she realized that anything out of the ordinary had occurred, unseen hands seized her from the darkness and a voice, as it were of the dead, said, "It is your husband Mahkmoud who speaks to you, you false and perjured woman. Go now to where Abdul has gone!"
At dawn next day Mahkmoud walked calmly into the police-station at Assiout. Here he asked to see the Yushbashi of police, and when brought before him said, very quietly, "My name is Mahkmoud. Twelve years ago I was, through the false and perjured testimony of my wife and her lover, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Now I am a murderer. Arrest me. I have spoken."
"IT IS YOUR HUSBAND MAHKMOUD WHO SPEAKS TO YOU, YOU FALSE AND PERJURED WOMAN."
For a second time Mahkmoud was tried for his life in Assiout, found guilty on his own confession, and sentenced to death. His Highness the Khedive once again commuted his sentence to penal servitude for life.
After five years, during which Mahkmoud's character was exemplary, he received a free pardon, and returned once more to his native village, where he died, an old and broken man. There is an Arab proverb, "If once you have tasted the sweet waters of the Nile, you will return to drink of them again."
Some incidents of a lady's life in the wilds of New Guinea. Miss Ker went out to Papua—as the country is now called—attached to a mission, and describes the many strange, amusing, and exciting experiences she encountered during her seven years' sojourn among the natives, who, not so very long ago, were always fighting and much addicted to cannibalism—a practice which still prevails among the wild tribes of the unexplored interior.
When, nine years ago, I first set out from Melbourne bound for British New Guinea—or Papua, as it is now officially called—I had very vague ideas about how to reach it, or what it would be like when I got there. I knew that New Guinea was a large island lying off the extreme north of Australia, and that the part I was going to was a little south of the Equator, but that was about all. However, I was told that I should catch a boat at Sydney which was sailing for Samarai, the island port of Papua, and that there I should be met by the schooner of the Anglican Mission. I might have to finish the journey in a whaleboat, I was informed, so my belongings had better be packed in small boxes. Thereupon I set off, armed with a thousand tabloids of quinine, a defence against malarial fever, which everyone in Papua contracts more or less badly as a matter of course.
THE HOSPITAL AT SAMARAI, THE PICTURESQUE CAPITAL OF PAPUA.
From a Photograph.
Although the distance was not very great, the voyage took nearly three weeks, for we certainly did not hurry. The captain was a cautious old man, and every night, during one "reefy" part of the trip, our anchor went down at six o'clock, not to be hauled up till the same hour next morning.
Then, too, instead of making for Samarai, we rounded Cape York and visited Thursday Island, where we remained for some days. Moreover, after calling at Port Moresby, on the south coast of Papua, we deliberately went sixty miles out of our way to land some members of the Roman Catholic Mission at Yule Island, their head station.
But at last, one morning, we reached Samarai—and a very pretty little place I thought it, though it is now much altered by the addition of a number of stores and Government buildings. One of the latter, the hospital, is shown on the previous page. Four little hills rose in the centre of the tiny island, surrounded by a picturesque, though unhealthy, swamp. Gorgeous crotons blazed with crimson and gold in the tropical sunlight, and thick clusters of palms—coco, areca, and sago—swayed gently in the wind, while their stiff leaves rustled in a most misleading manner, imitating a heavy shower of rain. Papaw trees hung their graceful sprays of waxen blossom, or stood upright under their load of ripening yellow fruit.
THE LITTLE VESSEL IN WHICH MISS KER COMPLETED HER LONG JOURNEY.
From a Photograph.
When the schooner eventually arrived, after some little delay, she began to load up with stores, comprising food (mostly tinned), trade goods, and medicines. After this was accomplished I went on board, and the last stage of my voyage began. I had not been on a sailing vessel before, and though I tried hard to believe we were actually moving, the breeze was so light that it required a great effort. On subsequent journeys I learned to be thankful if we did not actually retreat instead of advance, for one morning I woke and heard the captain say, "We're ten miles farther back than we were last night!"
THIS PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS HOW PRISONERS WERE CARRIED OFF THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE "BAD OLD DAYS," TO BE AFTERWARDS COOKED AND EATEN.
However, we drifted peacefully along the coast, with an unvarying mountain range in the background, looking as though gigantic tiger-skin rugs had been thrown over it. The natives, I was informed, had produced this effect by burning the grass when hunting boars and wallabies. Occasionally we would pass groups of coco palms, which denoted the existence of a village beneath them. Then, one morning, quite suddenly we found ourselves at our destination, and I stepped ashore to be surrounded by crowds of excited natives, to whom the advent of a white woman had not lost the charm of novelty.
The village of Wedau, where I disembarked, had been, not many years before, the scene of frequent cannibal feasts. The Wedauans had lived in a state of continual feud with the hill-folk and other tribes at a distance, and had sallied forth on various occasions to fight with them on any convenient "merewa" or battlefield. The photograph here reproduced shows a group of natives on an old "merewa," and illustrates the method by which hapless captives were carried off the field in the bad old days, to be afterwards cooked and eaten.
The victim, sometimes only stunned or wounded, was lashed by the hands and feet to a stout pole, which was borne on men's shoulders through the village. Sometimes several of these unhappy wretches were captured at a time, and the treatment they received before being mercifully killed was cruel to a degree. Samuela Aigeri, a Wedauan Christian, once related to me incidents of great barbarity which had taken place in the village in connection with the slaughter of a man taken prisoner by the villagers. The poor wretch asked in vain for water to drink, and was stoned and otherwise tormented for a considerable time before being given the coup de grâce. This was customary.
I soon discovered that European housekeeping in Papua is charmingly simple. Everything arrived in a tin, for the most part ready for use. Meat, milk, butter, vegetables—all stood in tins in neat rows in the storeroom. A diet of tinned stuffs grew rather monotonous at times, but we were able occasionally to vary it. Sometimes a man would arrive with a live turtle, which he would sell for two sticks of tobacco, costing threepence. The wretched turtle would be killed and cut up, but would still insist on quivering in a most realistic manner even when placed on the fire to cook. Then, too, if the season was a good one, the kitchen would be found lined with joints of wallabies, and it would be hard to know what to do with so much fresh meat.
NATIVES FILLING WATER-BOTTLES AT A STREAM.
From a Photograph.
I remember once thinking that smoked wallaby would be a change, and I asked the little cook-boy if he could get some done for me. He assented willingly, and bore a leg off to where he said there was an "ovo" or platform for smoking meat. In a few days it was returned to me and looked most appetizing. We cut a dish full of delicate slices, and were just about to set it on the dining-table, when I thought of asking the cook-boy how it had been prepared. He told me quite cheerfully that he had given it to an old leper woman, who, being ill, could not leave the house, and so was sure to keep the fire alight. It was she we had to thank for so kindly smoking our meat. Needless to say, the dish did not appear on the table that night.
Girls as well as boys learned cooking when at the mission station. One girl was considered a very good cook, so much so that on one occasion she was trusted to prepare a meal by herself, as everyone had gone for a picnic. She was told to make rissoles of what she found in the safe. The pudding, a Christmas one, was to follow.
At evening the party returned and sat down, hungry and tired, to eat. Surely, they thought, the rissoles tasted rather peculiar. However, they were eaten, and demands made for the pudding.
"But you have had the pudding," was the model cook's answer; "it was in the rissoles!"
Laundry work was sometimes carried on under great difficulties. At one station the water supply was some distance away, and was brought weekly by bullocks which dragged a heavy "slide" on which our pails stood. The bullocks were occasionally obstreperous, on which occasions the supply of water was sadly diminished. Moreover, when it was safely placed in the laundry the ducks hastened thither and bathed luxuriously in each tub, leaving behind them cloudy water plentifully besprinkled with feathers. At night our girl boarders, feeling thirsty, would ask if they might drink from the tubs and would gratefully receive permission to do so, quite undeterred by the fact that many ducks had bathed in the water, which, I should have mentioned, was so "hard" that no soap ever formed a lather. It may be imagined, therefore, what the clothes looked like when returned from the wash.
A TYPICAL NATIVE HOUSE.
From a Photograph.
Papuan marriage customs are interesting and rather intricate. In Collingwood Bay, for instance, the bride is mourned over for some days beforehand by her girl friends, who are losing their playmate. Then she is dressed in her best, presented with many gifts, and a procession is formed to take her to her new home.
The bridegroom is never to be found on his wedding-day. It is etiquette for him to go hunting or on some expedition which will take him from the village. His relatives, however, look after his interests and hasten the lagging footsteps of the wedding procession by lavish bribes. On arriving at the house the bride and her maids of honour enter and remain for the night, while the elders return home.
In the morning the poor little bride is deserted by her girl friends and betakes herself to sweeping her new domain with a handful of coco-nut bristles for a broom, thus officially acknowledging her marriage. After cooking a great pot of food she waits for the elusive bridegroom, who tarries only till the sun sets, when he joyfully returns after his voluntary exile and, alone with his wife at last, partakes of the marriage meal.
Medicine-men are regarded with great respect by the natives. Those I have met certainly seemed energetic and hard-working. They sit close to the patient, massaging the seat of pain with much vigour, and, while they are thus rubbing, make a noise with their lips rather like that which a groom makes when rubbing down a horse. The process is a tiring one, and the medicine-man stops at intervals to drink hot water in which taro has been boiled. His object is to extract some mysterious foreign substance from the sick man's body, and if he succeeds in this he receives a fee, otherwise he gets nothing. "No cure, no pay" is apparently the Papuan sufferer's motto.
On one occasion a medicine-man was attending to a patient outside a house in the village. The natives sitting round told me he had already extracted a pebble from one invalid and another cure was about to take place. I expressed a wish to see the next stone which should be removed, and waited patiently while the medicine-man rubbed on. At last he stopped and, with clenched fist, called upon me to watch. This I did, and he slowly opened his hand and, disclosing an empty palm, cried triumphantly, "It is gone!"
The natives were much impressed, but I must say I should have preferred one glimpse of the magic cause of disease before it vanished.
The weather in Papua is divided into two seasons only—wet and dry. The former is the summer, the latter the winter, but very little difference in temperature is noticeable. During the wet season thunderstorms may be expected, and some of these are truly terrible. I have seen even a white man look alarmed as great claps of thunder, following on vivid flashes of lightning, seemed to be cleaving asunder the roof over our heads. When to these are added strong wind and sheets of driving rain, the situation becomes distinctly unpleasant.
Like all savage races the Papuans have many superstitions, which appear to vary according to the tribe. The Wedauans, for example, had a belief that most of the unseen spirits around them were actively malignant.
There was a certain kind of eel which must not be eaten, or probably a disastrous flood would follow, while if a native wanted to cut down a tree he had to beware lest there was a kokome (dryad) living in it. If the kokome were annoyed it might cause the offender's face to swell and his skin to prick.
One of the worst possible offences against hidden powers was breaking a "tabu." "Tabu" was placed on all sorts of things—perhaps a certain coco-nut palm, or across a path. It was usually made of two upright sticks, with a crosspiece, on which were hung coco-nut leaf and husk. This was called an "iribubu," and was safeguarded by an incantation. It took a very reckless man or woman to disregard an "iribubu," for unless the enchanter was willing to accept a bribe he would not remove the charm, and the victim, so the natives thought, must die.
A PARTY OF COLLINGWOOD BAY NATIVES ON A HUNTING EXPEDITION.
From a Photograph.
A witch I knew lost her husband, and his death was put down to his wife's machinations. Nevertheless, the polite Papuan women came to blend their voices with the wailing of the newly-made widow. In a few years, spite of her uncanny reputation, the witch-widow became a wife once more. Her second husband must have been a brave man, or possibly he was a sorcerer, and intended to counteract his wife's powers with more potent charms than her own.
NATIVES ASSEMBLED FOR A PIG-FEAST—IT IS ETIQUETTE IN PAPUA TO EAT NOTHING BUT TO CARRY AWAY EVERYTHING.
From a Photograph.
In Wedau, directly anyone died, the house filled with wailing men and women, some of whom were paid mourners. Crying had to continue until after the funeral, and was extremely painful to listen to.
Marriage takes place early in Papua, so it was quite possible to have great-grandparents or children weeping at the grave. Imagine a whole family tree, with its collateral branches, all lifting their voices at once and with much energy, and you have a feeble idea of what a death in Wedau involved. The mourners usually called on the dead man by the relationship they bore to him, and seldom mentioned his name. After burial, in fact, the name was "popola," and must not be spoken. A small boy who was staying with me on a visit told me most emphatically that he must leave at once if I so much as mentioned the name of his dead grandfather.
At one of the villages up the coast a curious custom prevails. The mission girls and I went to witness the funeral of an old man. In the middle of the house, on the floor, the deceased lay in state. The poor old man's face was exposed to view, and was a ghastly sight, for the kinsfolk had rouged its cheeks, possibly to give it a semblance of life!
After some time spent in wailing, the procession proceeded to the grave. As the corpse was about to be placed in it the village policeman glanced at me, and requested to know whether I thought the grave was deep enough! It seems he had been required by the Government to superintend the digging of graves, and wished a foreigner's approval of the way he had fulfilled his task. What would have happened if I had suggested delaying the funeral to dig deeper, however, I shudder to think.
When I first went out to Papua there were only five other white women on the north-east coast, though there were a few at Samarai, the port. Naturally life under these conditions was very different from that in civilized countries. Roads there were none; but as we generally walked along the beach, or went by boat, this did not much matter, and there were a few tracks along which we walked in single file, with tall reeds or grass rising perhaps to six feet on either side of us. Gloves were unnecessary, and even veils were too hot to be worn. The best time of the day was the evening, though the early morning was deliciously cool. The Wedauans rose at an unearthly hour, and I have heard an astonished visitor at about 7 a.m. ask, "Is she ill?" on hearing that I was still in bed. But though we got up as a rule before seven we found a rest at midday almost imperative. My days went quietly and quickly enough. Sellers of edible ants, coco-nuts, and other foodstuffs came when it suited them or when they required tobacco, and patients who were receiving treatment usually arrived about 9 a.m. Then I could settle down to translation work, while the boy and girl boarders busied themselves in the garden or fished in the sea. In the afternoon we had school in the village for two hours, followed by classes or visiting the natives in their homes. They were most cordial, and would often make me a present of a sticky piece of taro or a fibrous sweet potato picked steaming out of the big earthenware pot. We all sat on the shingly floor, though perhaps I was given a mat to spread under me, and we would talk of pigs, crops, babies, and other matters till after service it was time for me to return to the house. It was not very exciting, but certainly a very happy life.
We tried the experiment of keeping sheep, but for various reasons, such as the presence of spear grass and attacks from village dogs or pigs, were compelled to give it up. Still, while we had them it was possible to taste fresh mutton occasionally, and I remember one of the lady missionaries coming in great glee to her fellow-workers. "Hurrah!" she cried. "A lamb has had sunstroke; we shall have fresh meat."
Fowls have always been difficult to rear, as there is little a village dog will not force his way through when he knows of their existence. On one occasion one of these daring animals killed a mission fowl in broad daylight, only to be immediately shot by a watchful missionary. We ate the fowl that night, while the villagers feasted royally on the dog. So, in spite of the double catastrophe, nothing was wasted.
Though cannibalism is still practised among the inland tribes, and even occasionally on the islands adjacent to the mainland, the coastal natives have to be content nowadays with pigs' flesh. They are very fond of giving feasts, and the last photograph shows a group of feast-givers decorated for the occasion, with gay feathers stuck in their fuzzy hair, which is teased out with a comb something like a many-pronged wooden toasting-fork. They hang egg cowrie shells on their arms, putting on all the finery they possess, and smearing their faces with lime.
All this preparation often took place days beforehand, for a feast in Papua is nothing if not movable. It used to be announced for a certain day, but at the appointed time all the necessary pigs might not have been brought in, or some expected visitors might not have arrived, or a pig already present might have struggled free from its bonds and have had to be hunted for a day or two. No one ever seemed to mind the delay, however. With well-bred calmness they waited until everything was quite ready, and then the feast began.
On one such occasion there were nearly a thousand people present, and fifty pigs, two thousand coco-nuts, and huge piles of taro were distributed. The feast-givers got nothing; that is a universal custom. The recipients likewise neither cooked nor ate a morsel until they got home, for it is considered good form in Papua to eat nothing but to carry away everything, thus practically reversing our notions of hospitality. There was a great heap of dismembered pigs lying on the ground, and the presiding genius of the feast, with his assistants, threw these violently towards the guests. Each important man had retainers who ran forward and bore the joint off, while the less fortunate ones kept up a running fire of comment—identifying a pig's head as having been the contribution of some particular man, or reproving the hill-folk for their awkward gait, telling them not to fear precipices on the coast, and so on.
At this particular feast one man, an ex-policeman, lost his temper completely. As his share of pork was thrown forward, the distributor took the opportunity of accusing him of certain misdemeanours. This so enraged the accused that he sprang to his feet brandishing a very unpleasant-looking knife about two feet long. His friends, not much impressed, stolidly brought him his pork and quite disregarded his angry commands to throw it away. Finally he subsided, muttering. In earlier days this would have been, no doubt, but the prelude to a very lively little battle, and spears would soon have been in action. The culprit, however, had served under Government, and knew what power it possessed to punish offenders.
(To be continued.)