Chapter IV

CANNIBALS IN PRISON--“THE YELP OF THE BEAST”--HISTORY OF
THE BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO--SPANISH SECRETIVENESS--DAMPIER
AND CARTERET’S VOYAGES--THE NEW GUINEA COMPANY

No truer words were ever written than the following by Sir George Grey, “Ignorance is the channel through which fear attacks human life.” At Herbertshöhe immediately the sun had set behind the rugged outline of the mountains of New Ireland in a wealth of crimson fleecy clouds, whilst the volcano and the bay lay steeped in shades of the most exquisite purple, the kanakas, who, beneath the hotel had been bathing or fishing on the reef, set up “Sing Songs” of a most penetrating character, ostensibly to ward off attacks from unfriendly spirits who, according to savage beliefs in this island, are prone to malevolent activity at this hour. The noise was at times deafening. I had been warned to be careful, not to stray too far from habitations, for the treacherous instinct to slink behind and brain an unsuspecting European is a factor to be reckoned with, so that for the first day or so I contented myself with strolling about the settlement and locating the different offices and stores of the traders. The police-station I gazed at with interest, for hither had been brought, not long before my coming, certain natives from the Sir Charles Hardy Islands, two hundred miles away.

It appeared that a manager of the firm of Forsyth saw these islanders with hacked-up human flesh in their baskets, and had thereupon given them to understand that under the rule of the “mailed fist,” cannibal practices must cease; whereupon, the kanakas, angry at being thwarted in the enjoyment of the prized delicacy, had threatened to kill him if he gave information to the authorities. The European had, notwithstanding, apprised His Excellency of the fact, and a ship had brought the transgressors to Herbertshöhe. I never discovered the exact mode in which these offenders were punished, but this is one out of many similar cases wherein natives have had their feet set upon the first rung of the ladder which leads to progress. The low status of the various races makes colonisation move slowly. To mentally exchange places with these savages is an impossibility. Though keen enough where contact with traders has accustomed them to look after matters of personal gain, yet their intelligence, certainly in the Gazelle Peninsula, is of so elementary a nature, so little removed occasionally from imbecility, that to try to grasp the standpoint from which the white man’s presence is viewed, requires many years’ experience.

Some of us believe that man is toiling slowly upwards from unknown depths. Others, that he is pitchforked into a solitary existence in this world, condemned unborn, by force of an heredity insuperably antagonistic to the attainment of the saving ethical standard. In the first of these creeds savage traits are to be expected in early stages of evolution, “the yelp of the beast” becoming fainter as he slowly works out his own salvation. If the _raison d’être_ of man’s existence is that eventually he may stand on the heights of life, with glimpses of heights that are higher, then--

“Earth’s crammed with Heaven
And every common bush afire with God.”

The highest experience of the heirs of all the ages is “to know ourselves part and proportion of a wondrous whole.” The fine insight of great poetic genius has intuitively felt the cosmic interpretation of what we call life, thus aiding us to solve, each for himself, the riddle of the universe.

Few educated persons however, in these days, deny that their ancestors rose by evolutionary processes from the animal kingdom, and in course of ages by slow and painful effort attained to the rank of human beings.

In these remote isles is a world sitting at the feet of Christ!

“Unknowing, blind and unconsoled;
It yet shall touch His garment’s fold
And feel the heavenly Alchemist
Transform its very dust to gold.”

Having permitted myself to indulge in a favourite line of thought, I will now retrace my steps.

One of my first actions at Herbertshöhe was to write to the author of the German work recently published, who, being a member of the British Anthropological Society would, I thought, be a good guide in native matters. Then I decided to call soon upon the bishop at Vunapope, and upon Queen Emma. Before proceeding further, it occurs to me that an outline of the history of this colony may be useful to interested readers.

It is impossible to say with accuracy when, in the dim past, the Bismarck Archipelago was first sighted by white men. Long before the Christian era, according to Chinese traditions, foreigners traded with that country, arriving in ships shaped like animals, having two great eyes at the bows. Some apparently were Babylonians, for they brought with them their knowledge of the stars and their weights and measures. As it is believed that the coasts of Sumatra and Java were known to those primitive mariners, we may be led to infer that those also of New Guinea were sighted at an early date. Coming down to later times, it is a matter of history how the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama in 1497, acted as a stimulus to maritime enterprise and discovery. Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British crossed trackless ocean wastes in search of gold and glory!

In 1511, a Portuguese discovered the Moluccas, whilst De Balboa, in 1513, from the Spanish possessions in Central America, first gazed upon the Pacific Ocean. In 1520 Magellan steered his ship through the strait which bears his name. A few years later the Spaniards had found their way across the Pacific to the Philippines and the Moluccas. That they had sighted the coasts of New Ireland and of New Guinea is certain, for Tasman relates how he found the Cabo de Santo Maria, the eastern point of New Ireland, on an old Spanish chart, but the policy of the Spaniards was secretive. In the fabulous wealth of their new possessions they had found a good thing, and resolved to keep it to themselves, for which nobody can blame them, considering that the same thing is done every day in this land of light and learning. Notwithstanding their silence, adventurers were keenly alert to find the “terra Australis incognita,” which the geographers of that date declared must of necessity exist to maintain the equilibrium of the universe. Somewhere in the southern hemisphere, to counterbalance the masses of land grouped together in the northern, this unknown territory was supposed to be situate. In accordance with this theory, in the year 1566, the Spanish Viceroy fitted out two ships to search for it. The command was bestowed upon Alvaro Mendana who, sailing from Callao in 1567, discovered the Lord Howe Group. From thence, steering in a southerly course, thinking that the fertile islands he coasted, corresponded to the Biblical Ophir, he named them the Solomon Isles. Torres later on discovered the strait separating New Guinea from Australia, but curious to relate, this discovery only came to light many years after, when the British at war with Spain besieged Manilla in 1762, found the report of Torres’ voyages in the archives of that town. In consequence of Spanish secretiveness, and owing to the confused and garbled versions which were rumoured of these voyages, it was not until the latter end of the eighteenth century that geographers decided that the islands discovered later by British and French explorers were identical with Mendana’s Solomon Islands.

Already in the beginning of the seventeenth century the might of the Spaniard was waning, and the Dutch were picking up what their former captors were losing. Nautical studies were prosecuted in the Netherlands, the purpose being to gain possession of the rich Spanish colonies. Nor does this seem likely to be the only instance in history when the world-wide dependencies of a great power have excited the envy of a neighbouring nation, and stimulated it to train experts in sea-craft! At this date the Dutch East India Company rose into being, and acquired in a short space of time Batavia, Amboyna, and Bantam, keeping the trade in their own hands. This monopoly caused much indignation in Holland, and incited the two navigators, Le Maire and Schouten, to further discoveries in the far east. In 1616, after rounding the Horn, they sighted three low-lying islands; the coasts were steep, and there was no anchorage. These they called Green Islands (subsequently they were known as the Sir Charles Hardy Group--native, Nissan). Directing their course towards a mountainous shore, they believed themselves to be on the north-east coast of New Guinea, when they were in reality off the Cape of St Maria in New Ireland. Here fierce encounters with natives, who swarmed on to their decks from numerous canoes, took place. Ten were killed, three made prisoners; two were, however, released in exchange for a pig and a bunch of bananas. The journal mentioning this circumstance naively adds _that they did not seem worth more_ (mehr schienen sie nicht wert zu sein). Steering northwards they approached the shores of the present New Hanover, but failed to note its insularity. Passing the Admiraltys, they identified the “High Lands” with the twenty-five islands of a former explorer. In 1642, Anthony van Diemen, then Governor of the Dutch Indies, despatched two ships, provisioning them for eighteen months, into the unknown south. This expedition, commanded by Tasman, discovered in the Bismarck Archipelago the little island which bears his name, Fisher Island, Anthony Caerns, and Gerrit Denys, but he seems to have fallen into the mistake made by the earlier navigators in taking the mountainous coast of New Ireland for that of the island of New Guinea.

It was left for the British explorer, William Dampier, in 1700, to establish the geographical fact that they were two different islands. Having visited the west coast of Australia, this famous navigator steered northwards and reached the island of Timor. Sailing from thence in an easterly direction, he missed the “High Lands” (Admiraltys), which the Dutch navigator had noted, and passing between Squally Island and St Matthias, he coasted down the eastern shores of New Hanover and New Ireland. Between Gardner Island and Gerrit Denys, he came into conflict with fierce natives, who swarmed up his ship’s decks. Passing Cape St Maria, he penetrated southwards, named Cape St George, and mistaking the channel which divides the island of New Britain from New Ireland for a bay, called it St George’s Bay. Here he perceived clouds of smoke issuing from the northern corner which proceeded no doubt from the crater known as the Mother, opposite Herbertshöhe. Had Dampier arrived at any other time of year, he would probably have been swept into the Channel, to discover that his Nova Britannia consisted of two islands. This was left for his successor Carteret to demonstrate. From February to April, Dampier sailed in these seas, and at this time of year a strong north-west wind sweeps through St George’s Channel, in consequence of which a powerful current, against which sailing-ships are unable to advance, would have deterred him from making a more detailed survey of the supposed bay. Continuing to skirt the southern portion of New Britain, he discovered the passage which bears his name dividing the island from New Guinea. Here amongst numerous islets he discovered and named Sir George Rook Island. Up to his time, the Bismarck Archipelago had been considered to be a portion of New Guinea.

Dampier was followed in 1722 by the Dutchman Roggeveen, who confused New Britain with New Zealand. Again, in 1764, more British explorers sailed for the South Seas, amongst them Commander Wallis in the frigate called the _Dolphin_. He had with him, in charge of his second vessel, an old-fashioned sloop which had seen thirty years’ service, the celebrated Lieutenant Philip Carteret. In April 1767, the latter lost sight of his commander in the Magellan Straits, and not till the following August did the crew of his unseaworthy ship see _terra firma_. This intrepid officer then discovered those islands which bear his name. Of the natives he speaks as follows:--“The inhabitants are black and curly-headed, like the negroes of Africa; their weapons are bows and arrows; they possess great canoes, which they navigate by means of sails.” The following day the Sir Charles Hardy Islands were sighted also; towards the south an elevated coast-line was observed, which Carteret called Winchelsea Island. In reality this is the first mention of the island of Buka, the northernmost of the Solomon Group. In a day or two he found himself confronting the coasts of New Britain, where he was driven by sea and wind into Dampier’s St George’s Bay. Here, to the joy of the crew who had suffered many privations, Carteret found anchorage in the little “English cove,” where they stayed, repairing the ship, till the 9th of September, when they were driven further into the supposed bay. Carteret then discovered that it was a strait separating the two islands. He named it St George’s Channel; the group of islands known as New Lauenburg he called the Duke of York Islands, and to the present New Mecklenburg he gave the name of New Ireland. Steering along the western coast of the last-named, he discovered Sandwich Island. Here the sloop lay becalmed and was visited by ten canoes with some one hundred and fifty natives, who were curious, but shy and inoffensive. Proceeding northwards he discovered the passage dividing the islands of New Hanover and New Ireland. On the 13th of September he sighted Portland Island; the day following the “Twenty-five Islands,” to which he gave the name of the Admiralty Isles; a day or two after, he passed Douro and Matty.

About this date the Frenchman Antoine de Bougainville was ordered by the King of France to explore the South Seas. After discovering the Louisiades he, in 1768, saw upon his starboard the long mountainous island which bears his name; later on, Cloiseul, and on a northward course he discovered the Hermits and the Exchequer Islands.

The century following, the Bismarck Archipelago was often visited by captains of various nationalities. In 1849 Captain Keppel in the _Meander_ passed Purdy Island, and landing on the Admiraltys found the natives favourably disposed towards him.

Again, in 1872, the British cruiser _Blanche_, under Captain Simpson, anchored behind the island of Matupi, in the bay which bears his name. About this time the first permanent trading station belonging to a German firm was established at Mioko. The year 1875 brought two scientific expeditions into the Archipelago. Sir C. Nares, commanding H.M.S. _Challenger_, visited the Admiraltys, and Captain von Schleinitz, in the German war-ship, _Gazelle_, made a close inspection of the coasts of New Hanover, New Ireland, the Gazelle Peninsula and Bougainville. The 12th of October in this eventful year saw also the foundations laid of the important Australian Wesleyan Mission by the well-known missionary, Dr George Brown. The year 1879 is memorable as that in which took place the disastrous concern known as the Marquis de Rey’s expedition. Under a pretence of founding a colony in New Ireland, to be called New France, this unprincipled nobleman induced a number of persons to subscribe some 13,000,000 francs towards his nefarious scheme. His dupes sailed in the _Chandernagore_, to find at the end of their voyage that they had been grossly swindled.

In 1884 the German flag was hoisted at Matupi, and in the year following the Kaiser granted to the New Guinea Trading Company, which already had plantations in Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land, a charter constituting it the ruling authority in the infant colony. However, in the course of a few years, this arrangement proved unsatisfactory, and at the request of the Company itself, a Protectorate was proclaimed, and New Guinea became a Crown Colony, the Company receiving £20,000 in compensation for having relinquished certain privileges.

Herr von Benningsen was the first Imperial Governor; he chose Herbertshöhe as the future seat of government for the colony. The present Dr Hahl succeeded him in 1901.

Whilst I was in the Pacific in 1907, new territory was added to his jurisdiction. The Jaluit Trading Company, who up to that date had administered the German Islands in Micronesia (the Marshalls, Carolines, and Ladrones), was deprived of its privileges, and the Governor at Herbertshöhe henceforth is held responsible to the Crown for the government of these islands.