Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley - Volume 2 by John MacGillivray (the dot read aloud TXT) 📖

one of them had it safely (as it thought) stowed away in its burrow.

The golden plover was plentiful on the island during our visit, and one afternoon I killed fifteen in about an hour. Two days after the terns' eggs had been broken we found a small colony of laying birds, and picked up some dozens of eggs; and had we remained a few days longer, doubtless a very great number might have been procured. The weed which in the Fly we used to call spinach (a species of Boerhaavia, apparently B. diffusa) being abundant here, was at my suggestion collected in large quantity for the use of the ship's company as a vegetable, but it did not seem to be generally liked.

December 21st.

Two days ago we left Bramble Cay for Cape Possession in New Guinea, with a fine breeze from the North-West, and next morning at daylight saw the land about the Cape on the weather-beam. The wind, however, died away in the afternoon, but this morning a light north-westerly breeze sprang up, before which we bore up and were brought in the afternoon to an anchorage in 11 fathoms, mud, half a mile to leeward of the Pariwara Islands.

ARRIVE AT REDSCAR BAY.

Meanwhile Lieutenant Yule, upon our destination being changed, was ordered by signal to proceed to Cape Direction and survey the intermediate space between that and Redscar Bay, in order to connect his former continuation of the Fly's work with ours, and thus complete the coastline of the whole of the south-east part of New Guinea.

We remained at this anchorage for upwards of a week, during which a rate for the chronometers was obtained, and the Bramble returned.

WEATHER DURING WESTERLY MONSOON.

The weather during our stay was very variable and unsettled; rain fell on several occasions. The wind was usually from the westward, varying between North-West and South-West, and on one occasion during the night we had a sudden and very violent squall from the westward, which for a time was thought to be the beginning of a hurricane, but the gale moderated very gradually next day. When the wind during the day was light and from seaward, a land breeze generally came off at night, occasionally with rain. The cause of this last seems to be the influence exerted upon the winds here by Mount Owen Stanley and the ranges connected with it, from which the clouds accumulated during the prevalence of the seabreeze, are reflected after its subsidence. The low and well wooded district between the mountains and the sea receives the passing influence of these clouds surcharged with moisture, and the climate there and in all the low maritime districts of the south-east part of New Guinea backed by high land, is probably always a moist one, little affected by the prevalence of either the North-West or South-East monsoon. The observations made during our last visit to determine the height of Mount Owen Stanley and not considered very satisfactory, were repeated under more favourable conditions, but with nearly the same result. This mountain, the highest of the range of the same name, is somewhat flat-topped (as viewed from our anchorage) about six miles in length, and the mean of five observations from different stations gave 13,205 feet as the height of the highest part above the level of the sea.

PARIWARA ISLAND.

On the largest Pariwara Island, although abundance of rain had fallen lately, there was no water left in any pool or hole in the rock. Nor although the soil, from the additional moisture, looked darker and richer than during my former visit in September, was there any perceptible improvement in the vegetation. A few fork-tailed red-fronted swallows (Hirundo neoxena) were hawking about, and a large yellow and black butterfly (Papilio epius, common in collections from India and China) was abundant. Many Torres Strait pigeons were observed from the ship to resort nightly to the second largest of the group, which is covered with trees and seems quite inaccessible from the steepness of its low cliffs. On several successive evenings about sunset, and until it became too dark to distinguish them, immense numbers of frigate-birds were observed flying over Redscar Head, and going out to the North-North-East. This being a gregarious bird only when associated at a breeding place, and there being no known sandbank or islet in the direction which they were pursuing, rendered their object a subject for much conjecture.

MANY NATIVES VISIT US.

We were occasionally visited by parties of natives, chiefly coming from the northward, probably from some of the large rivermouths known to exist there. Although in bringing their women and children off to see the ship they indicated little suspicion or fear, yet on one occasion only could we induce any of the men to come on board, and the two who did so would not be persuaded to go below, and made their stay very short. As I had better opportunities of making observations upon these natives than during our former visit, some additional information regarding them may be given here. The inhabitants of Redscar Bay, judging from what was seen alongside the ship, are rather smaller in stature than those seen at Dufaure and Brumer Islands and the Louisiade, but perhaps more frequently show handsome features and good expression. Neither were there any men exceeding the rest in height by even three inches, as had often been the case in other places. They are usually of a very light copper colour, but one man was of a very pale yellow and much resembled a Chinaman in hue; although it may at first appear strange, yet this pale-skinned individual by his very colour excited feelings of disgust in the minds of some of us, such as would be created by the sight of a person whose body was covered with a loathsome eruption and who still publicly exposed it. And why should not our pale faces be regarded by these savages in a similar light? Some had perfect Malayan features, but none seen on this occasion appeared to practice betel-chewing-a remarkable circumstance, since the men who on our former visit came off to the ship, then only about fifteen miles to the north-west, had their teeth discoloured.

PIGTAILS AND TATTOOING.

None of the natives had any hair upon the face; various ways of dressing that of the head were practised, the most singular of which has already been described in Volume 1. The hair was usually of its natural dark colour at the base, with the remainder dyed reddish brown and frizzled out into a mop with long-toothed combs of wood or tortoise-shell. One child had the head so shaved as to leave a long tuft on the forehead, and another on the back of the head-precisely in the same manner as is sometimes practised in Java. Nor must I omit noticing a singular appendage formerly alluded to-analogous to the pigtail once in vogue-worn by many of these people; it is formed of human hair wrapped round with twine, and ends in one or more bunches of shells, dogs' teeth, and tails of pigs-the longest one which I saw measured twenty-one inches in length. Among numerous ornaments the most common is a large round concave portion of melon shell, sometimes beautifully inlaid with filagree work of tortoise-shell, worn on the breast. Fillets of cassowary feathers, fur of the spotted bare-tailed opossum, or woven stuff studded with shells, were often seen.

Painting the face or body does not seem to be practised here, but the men are usually tattooed on the breast, cheeks, forehead, and arms, also occasionally on other places. Their tattooing, however, is much fainter and less profuse than among the women, every visible part of whose skin is generally marked with a great variety of patterns, the most usual style among them consisting in series of double parallel or converging lines an inch or more apart, the intervals being occupied by small figures, or irregular lines, with detached rectilinear figures fancifully filled up.

DRESS AND ARMS.

The women wear a petticoat of shreds of pandanus leaf, plaited above into a waistband and below reaching nearly to the knee.

They brought off little with them for barter besides bows and arrows, and as before appeared perfectly ignorant of the use of iron. A few coconuts, plantains, and mangos were obtained from them, but they had no yams. Nearly every canoe which came alongside contained several large baked earthen pots of good construction, some with wide, others with narrow mouths, and a third sort shaped like a saucer. Besides bows and arrows, we saw many spears, mostly of small size and usually finely jagged or barbed towards the end, but of very inferior workmanship, also some shields, one of which may be described.* It measures 33 inches in length by 14 in width, and in shape resembles a fiddle, being rounded at the ends and slightly contracted in the middle; it is made of wood, three-fourths of an inch thick, neatly covered with fine cane matting, fitting very tightly.

(*Footnote. Figured in volume 1.)

SINGLE OR DOUBLE CANOES.

The canoes seen here are either single or double, in the latter case consisting merely of two lashed together, usually without an outrigger. The single canoes vary in length from 20 to 30 feet, and carry from five to a dozen people. Each end tapers to a sharp projecting point longer at the bow. The outrigger frame consists of five poles laid across the gunwale in grooves, and the float, which is rather less than half the length of the body of the canoe, is secured to the ends of each by three pegs, a foot in length. The opposite ends of the outrigger poles project beyond the side only a few inches, and are secured by lashing of cane to a piece crossing them; the gunwale is further strengthened by slender poles running along it from end to end. A small portion only of the outrigger frame is converted into a platform by a few loose poles or a plank or two: some of the latter were as much as two feet in width, and only an inch in thickness, and must have been cut with stone axes out of a log of wood. The largest canoe seen was judged to be thirty-five feet in length, with a width at the bow of four and a half feet, but this far exceeded in bulk any of the other single ones. Like the rest it essentially consisted of the hollowed-out trunk of a tree. All the heavy canoes are pulled with oars, working in cane grommets, the others are propelled with paddles. Both oars and paddles have lanceolate blades and thick handles, without any attempt at ornament or even neatness of design.

The sail (of pandanus matting) is a long parallelogram, twelve feet by three, its sides secured by two tough slender poles, between which it is stretched, and which serve both as masts and yards. In making sail one of the poles is shipped, two stays from the centre leading fore and aft are then set up, after which the second pole is fixed and secured by stays, so as to give the sail the requisite inclination. We frequently saw a second smaller sail set before the first, at the distance of eight or ten feet, and managed precisely in the same way, but, even with both sails set, owing to the disproportion between the spread of canvas and the bulk of the canoe, the latter moves slowly at all times, and on a wind makes much leeway.

SAIL FROM REDSCAR BAY.

December 31st.

We sailed yesterday from our anchorage in Redscar Bay, but did not clear the sunken ridge of coral in the offing-a submarine