The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (rocket ebook reader .TXT) 📖

of Pembroke, to whom I wrote on the subject from Australia, strongly urged me to endeavour to secure at least one living specimen; so also did Sir George Grey. But although I--like Mr. Stair--wrote to many native friends in Samoa, offering a high price for a bird, I had no success; civil war had broken out, and the people had other matters to think of beside bird-catching. I was, however, told a year later that two fine specimens had been taken on the north-west coast of Upolu, that one had been so injured in trapping that it died, and the other was liberated by a mischievous child.

I have never heard one of these birds sound a note, but a native teacher on Tutuila told me that in the mating season they utter a short, husky hoot, more like a cough than the cry of a bird.

A full month after I first landed in Samoa, I was shooting in the mountains at the back of the village of Tiavea in Upolu, when a large, and to me unknown, bird rose from the leaf-strewn ground quite near me, making almost as much noise in its flight as a hornbill. A native who was with me, fired at the same time as I did, and the bird fell. Scarcely had the native stooped to pick it up, exclaiming that it was a _Manu Mea_ when a second appeared, half-running, half-flying along the ground. This, alas! I also killed They were male and female, and my companion and I made a search of an hour to discover their resting place (it was not the breeding season), but the native said that the _Manu Mea_ scooped out a retreat in a rotten tree or among loose stones, covered with dry moss. But we searched in vain, nor did we even see any wild yams growing about, so evidently the pair were some distance from their home, or were making a journey in search of food.

During one of my trips on foot across Upolu, with a party of natives, we sat down to rest on the side of a steep mountain path leading to the village of Siumu. Some hundreds of feet below us was a comparatively open patch of ground--an abandoned yam plantation, and just as we were about to resume our journey, we saw two _Manu Mea_ appear. Keeping perfectly quiet, we watched them moving about, scratching up the leaves, and picking at the ground in an aimless, perfunctory sort of manner with their heavy, thick bills. The natives told me that they were searching, not for yams, but for a sweet berry called _masa'oi_, upon which the wild pigeons feed.

In a few minutes the birds must have become aware of our presence, for they suddenly vanished.

I have always regretted in connection with the two birds I shot, that not only was I unaware of their value, even when dead, but that there was then living in Apia a Dr. Forbes, medical officer to the staff of the German factory. Had I sent them to him, he could have cured the skins at least, for he was, I believe, an ardent naturalist.



CHAPTER XXIV ~ A NIGHT RUN ACROSS FAGALOA BAY

When I was supercargo of the brig _Palestine_, we were one day beating along the eastern shore of the great island of Tombara (New Ireland) or, as it is now called by its German possessors, _Neu Mecklenburg_, when an accident happened to one of our hands--a smart young A.B. named Rogers. The brig was "going about" in a stiff squall, when the jib-sheet block caught poor Rogers in the side, and broke three of his ribs.

There were then no white men living on the east coast of New Ireland, or we should have landed him there to recover, and picked him up again on our return from the Caroline Islands, so we decided to run down to Gerrit Denys Island, where we had heard there was a German doctor living. He was a naturalist, and had been established there for over a year, although the natives were as savage and warlike a lot as could be found anywhere in Melanesia.

We reached the island, anchored, and the naturalist came on board. He was not a professional-looking man. Here is my description, of him, written fifteen years ago:--

"He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork instead of scissors, they were so marvellously ill-fitting. His head-gear was an ancient Panama hat, which flopped about, and almost concealed his red-bearded face, as if trying to apologise for the rest of his apparel; and the thin gold-rimmed spectacles he wore made a curious contrast to his bare and sun-burnt feet, which were as brown as those of a native. His manner, however, was that of a man perfectly at ease with himself and his clear, steely blue eyes, showed an infinite courage and resolution."

At first he was very reluctant to have Rogers brought on shore, but finally yielded, being at heart a good-natured man. So we bade Rogers good-bye, made the doctor a present of some provisions, and a few cases of beer, and told him we should be back in six weeks.

When we returned, Rogers came on board with the German. He was quite recovered, and he and his host were evidently on very friendly terms, and bade farewell to each other with some show of feeling.

After we had left the island, Rogers came aft, and told us his experiences with the German doctor.

"He's a right good sort of a chap, and treated me well, and did all he could for me, sirs--but although he is a nice cove, I'm glad to get away from him, and be aboard the brig again. For I can hardly believe that I haven't had a horrid, blarsted nightmare for the past six weeks."

And then he shuddered.

"What was wrong with him, Rogers?" asked the skipper.

"Why, he ain't no naturalist--I mean like them butterfly-hunting coves like you see in the East Indies. He's a head-hunter--buys heads--fresh 'uns by preference, an' smokes an' cures 'em hisself, and sells 'em to the museums in Europe. So help me God, sirs, I've seen him put fresh human heads into a barrel of pickle, then he takes 'em out after a week or so, and cleans out the brains, and smokes the heads, and sorter varnishes and embalms 'em like. An' when he wasn't a picklin' or embalmin' or varnishin', he was a-writing in half a dozen log books. I never knew what he was a-doin' until one day I went into his workshop--as he called it--and saw him bargaining with some niggers for a fresh cut-off head, which he said was not worth much because the skull was badly fractured, and would not set up well.

"He was pretty mad with me at first for comin' in upon him, and surprisin' him like, but after a while he took me into his confidence, and said as how he was engaged in a perfeckly legitimate business, and as the heads was dead he was not hurtin' 'em by preparing 'em for museums and scientific purposes. And he says to me, 'You English peoples have got many peautiful preserved heads of the New Zealand Maories in your museums, but ach, Gott, there is not in England such peautiful heads as I haf mineself brebared here on dis islandt And already I haf send me away fifty-seven, and in two months I shall haf brebared sixteen more, for which I shall get me five hundred marks each.'"

Rogers told us that when he one day expressed his horror at his host's "business," the German retorted that it was only forty or fifty years since that many English officials in the Australian colonies did a remarkably good business in buying smoked Maori heads, and selling them to the Continental museums. (This was true enough.) Rogers furthermore told us that the doctor "cured" his heads in a smoke-box, and had "a regular chemist's shop" in which were a number of large bottles of pyroligneous acid, prepared by a London firm.

This distinguished savant left Gerrit Denys Island about a year later in a schooner bound for Singapore. She was found floating bottom up off the Admiralty Group, and a Hong-Kong newspaper, in recording the event, mentioned that "the unfortunate gentleman (Dr. Ludwig S------) had with him an interesting and extremely valuable ethnographical collection ".

Rogers's horrible story had a great interest for me; for it had been my lot to see many human heads just severed from the body, and I was always fascinated by the peculiar expression of the features of those unfortunates who had been decapitated suddenly by one swift blow. "Death," "Peace," "Immortality," say the closed eyelids and the calm, quiet lips to the beholder.

I little imagined that within two years I should have a rather similar experience to that of Rogers, though in my case it was a very brief one. Yet it was all too long for me, and I shall always remember it as the weirdest experience of my life.

I have elsewhere in this volume spoken of the affectionate regard I have always had for the Samoan people, with whom I passed some of the happiest years of my life. I have lived among them in peace and in war, have witnessed many chivalrous and heroic deeds, and yet have seen acts of the most terrible cruelty to the living, the mutilation and dishonouring of the dead killed in combat, and other deeds that filled me with horror and repulsion. And yet the perpetrators were all professing Christians--either Protestant or Roman Catholic--and would no more think of omitting daily morning and evening prayer, and attending service in church or chapel every Sunday, than they would their daily bathe in sea or river.

Always shall I remember one incident that occurred during the civil war between King Malietoa and his rebel subjects at the town of Saluafata. The _olo_ or trenches, of the king's troops had been carried by the rebels, among whom was a young warrior who had often distinguished himself by his reckless bravery. At the time of the assault I was in the rebel lines, for I was on very friendly terms with both sides, and each knew that I would not betray the secrets of the other, and that my only object was to render aid to the wounded.

This young man, Tolu, told me, before joining in the assault, that he had a brother, a cousin, and an uncle in the enemy's trenches, and that he trusted he should not meet any one of them, for he feared that he might turn _pala'ai_ (coward) and not "do his duty". He was a Roman Catholic, and had been educated by the Marist Brothers, but all his relatives, with the exception of one sister, were Protestants--members of the Church established by the London Missionary Society.

An American trader named Parter and I watched the assault, and saw the place carried by the rebels, and went in after them. Among the dead was Tolu, and we were told that he had shot himself in grief at having cut down his brother, whom he did not recognise.

Now as to my own weird experience.

There had been severe fighting in the Fagaloa district of the Island of Upolu, and many villages were in flames when I left the Port of Tiavea in my boat for Fagaloa Bay, a few miles along the shore. I was then engaged in making a trip along the north coast,