Two Years Among the Savages of New Guinea.: With Introductory Notes on North Queensland.Pitcairn, W. D.
History
Two Years Among the Savages of New Guinea.: With Introductory Notes on North Queensland.
Pitcairn, W. D.
New Guinea -- Description and travel
I wonder if they lamented the death of their late lord, or whether they
sought comfort in the reflection that for every dead shark there were
hundreds of living ones.
The day being very hot, I was in the act of lowering a couple of
buckets over the side to get a supply of salt water to cool the decks
with, when somehow or other the rope attached to them slipped out of my
hand, and down went the buckets to the bottom of the ocean. This was
most annoying, as we were now reduced to one bucket.
Sailing in mid-ocean, and having no coast to steer by, we "took the
sun" at noon each day, in order to determine our position and keep our
course or alter it accordingly.
By our calculations we should soon sight North Island, as we had now
been five days out at sea.
We had no chronometer on board, so we could not be certain of our exact
position.
On the evening of the eighth day out from Ralume, New Britain, we found
ourselves ten miles to leeward of North Island. We rectified our course
and, travelling night and day, beat our way between a perfect nest of
islands, at times heaving to in order to trade with the natives who
came alongside in their canoes.
Without meeting with any misadventure, we reached the anchorage at
"Egum," on Wednesday evening, having been ten weary days on the voyage.
Long before we had arrived at the anchorage, the rocks near the beach
were covered with the naked forms of our friends. Our cutter had
already been recognized, and its name was being shouted from one native
to the other.
To their delight we had returned in safety from our perilous voyage,
for did we not carry two distinguished members of their race on board,
namely "Tokaiakus" and "Sindiwaia"?
There was much shaking of hands, and they appeared anxious to hear of
the lands we had visited and the sights that we had seen.
We landed our dwarf and his young friend in the bosom of their
families, and I can safely aver they kept the natives of the island
alive for many weeks with the account of their travels and adventures
and the wonderful sights they had seen.
We spent two or three days here in order to refit.
We commissioned the natives to get us a turtle, promising to give them
15 sticks of trade tobacco for it.
They started off in one of their big canoes for a small island about
seven miles away.
They stayed on the island all night, but were unsuccessful. Being
anxious to earn the tobacco, and knowing that "no turtle no tobacco,"
was our motto, they remained another night, and succeeded in capturing
a huge turtle weighing close on four cwt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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