CHAPTER VTHE FIRST CAMP
CHAPTER VTHE FIRST CAMP
CHAPTER VTHE FIRST CAMP
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST CAMP
To return, however, to our journey. We crossed the Aculama by a missionary bridge, a rough structure made of two trees placed about a couple of feet apart, and laid with cross strips of wood. At once we began our climb to Dinawa up a winding forest path—the last stage of the march which was to bring us to our permanent camp. I was always on the look-out for natural treasures, and when we got to the top of the ridge just beyond the Aculama, I was fortunate enough to see in a ravine just below a magnificent example of D’Alberti’s creeper. D’Alberti had discovered it on the Fly River. The one I found here in the mountains was of the variety namedMacuna Bennetti. It ran up its supporting trunk on a stem which was about 6 inches thick at the base. At the height of 200 feet it found light, threw out slender arms, and then dropped down bunches of festoons 20 feet long, a magnificent blaze of scarlet blossom. The flowers of theMacuna Bennettiare distinguished by a calyx covered with short hairs, some short and pliable, a few stiff. When we reached the top of Dinawa Hill we found patches of grass growing, which did not occur anywhere on the lower slopes.
We at once set about selecting a piece of groundfor our camp, and found a level, grassy space, which required only the cutting of a few trees to make it clear enough for our purpose. There was, however, very little brushwood to cut. Pending the building of a more permanent home, we pitched our tent and settled down for the first night at our base of operations. Dinawa village was fifty yards away, and the native men came timidly out to look at us. They were very suspicious, and their womenkind so shy that it was a considerable time before they would venture to approach our camp.
The day after our arrival the carriers went back, and it was to the Papuans of the vicinity that we had to look for the labour that was to build our house. My Cingalese servant, Sam, spoke the language, and he made the overtures to our dusky neighbours. We were careful to let them get some inkling of the “trade” we carried, and this seemed to encourage them to greater boldness. Occasionally we would open a box in front of our visitors and show them an axe or a knife, whereat they would say “lo-pi-ang,” that is, “good,” the first word, probably, that a European would hear from the lips of a Papuan. A little present of tobacco would help matters greatly, and in return for this the beneficiary would say with the ingratiating guilelessness of a child, “Parki lo-pi-ang” (good Pratt). In time the neighbouring villages, hearing of the vast wealth that had arrived at Dinawa, came in too, and I was able to engage a force of workers, whose numbers varied from ten to fifteen, and who commenced immediately to build my house. These were to be paid when the house was finished; but during the ten days that the building was going on they were given occasional supplies of tobacco as a gratuity. The average wage per day was three sticks of tobacco, or one rami, which would mean about 1¼ yards of scarlet calico. At the end of the time each man was to receive a large 18–inch knife, or an axe, and a certain number of sticks of tobacco.
HILL NATIVES AT DINAWA.
HILL NATIVES AT DINAWA.
HILL NATIVES AT DINAWA.
For our house, we first drove into the ground two stout poles 18 feet apart. These carried the main beam of the roof. At a distance of 6 feet on each side of these poles we placed the corner supports of the house, each 12 feet high. The framework was then joined up with poles of unsplit bamboo tied with split cane, and the framework of the walls consisted of upright pieces of split bamboo set in the ground 1 foot apart. We then wattled these uprights with smaller pieces of split bamboo, the sides and gables of the house forming a complete basket-work. From the ridge-pole we dropped bamboo rafters extending far beyond the walls, so as to give very wide eaves, and throw the drip of the rain as far out as possible. We were now ready to thatch the roof, and for this we required large quantities of grass. The natives by this time had gained sufficient confidence in us to allow their women to work for us, and accordingly I employed ten women as grass-cutters, and kept them for several days at work cutting with 6–inch knives, which we supplied. They had no distance to go to find sufficient grass for our purpose, but the procuring of heavier poles and bamboo was a different matter. The wood had tobe cut at a point some distance down the hill, and it took quite three hours to bring up each of the heavier logs. When the roof was on we nailed down our floor, which was made of bamboo fixed to cross-pieces 6 inches off the ground. The material was not ideal, for the joints were never closed, and small articles used to fall down into the cracks. We made our door frame of axed wood and covered it with thick canvas.
We had also to build our collecting verandah, which we placed on the edge of a precipice not far from the house. It had a 20–foot frontage, and was 12 feet wide, with a division down the centre at the ridge-pole of the roof, which made it, properly speaking, two verandahs placed back to back, so that when the wind was unfavourable on one side, we could find shelter on the other. The whole of the structure was raised off the ground on poles, and the boys had their quarters beneath.
Such was our establishment at Dinawa. When we had finished it we began to settle down, and were able to organise the camp for work. A native boy called Doboi, from near Dinawa village, was engaged as cook, and we had also a water-boy, Matu, whose duty was to go down the hill, a tramp of three-quarters of an hour, to a beautiful spring whence we derived our supply. It was lovely water, for the declivity gave no opportunity for decomposing vegetable matter to collect. The well always ran clear, and, even at the worst part of the drought, did not fail us altogether, although its trickle had sunk to the size of an ordinary lead-pencil, and the boy hadto wait quite a long time before he could fill the billies.
We built our fire outside the house in the open space, gipsy fashion, and hung the billy, in which we did all our cooking, on a stick resting on two forked upright sticks. Gradually our working day fell into a regular routine. We awoke with the dawn, but had always to trust to ourselves to make the first start, as your Papuan will not wake a sleeping man. He has indeed a superstitious awe of the slumberer. If one must be awakened, it must not be by a shake, and when Doboi had advanced far enough to bring us a cup of tea in the morning, he would tread very warily.
When we were fairly astir, we found Doboi already about and the fire going. Then he would make tea while Harry or I baked cakes. The bread rises easily in New Guinea owing to the temperature, and we were never at a loss for yeast; for I had brought with me a small quantity of hops, and we kept our supply going by keeping back a piece of dough from every batch. This fragment, no bigger than a pocket matchbox, we placed in an ordinary pound tin, and by noon it had swelled right over the edges. We breakfasted on bread and dripping of pig, when we had been able to buy one from the natives, and sometimes we substituted coffee for tea. By seven o’clock breakfast was finished, the boys having had theirs under the verandah. It was then time for them to be off to their collecting, but they were difficult to move. They wanted to sit and smoke. Once off, they might do a day’s work, but on the other handthere was just the chance that they would waste their employer’s time in the forest, smoking and telling stories; or, if they had killed and caught anything, they would immediately sit down and cook it. If this happened they would come home empty-handed, quite shamelessly, saying “awpapoo achi” (no butterflies).
Each boy was supplied with a large butterfly net and collecting box. In every box we stuck a certain number of pins, and told the boy that if he filled his box with good specimens he would receive a stick of tobacco. Bad specimens I always discarded in the culprit’s presence, so that his iniquity might come home to him. I had, of course, to undertake the training of the collectors myself, although Sam helped to explain the method.
First, I got a butterfly and showed how to handle it and pin it sideways into the box. The crucial matter was the seizing of it once it was in the net. It must be carefully taken between finger and thumb and the thorax pinched on the under side. If it be pinched from above—as every butterfly collector knows—the operator’s finger-marks would show on the wings and betray slovenly handling. Some of the boys became very neat-fingered after a time, but others would not learn at all, and were so shameless that they would bring in part of a wing carefully stuck on the pin—in fact, it was “anything to fill your box.” Occasionally the less scrupulous would appropriate the pins to their own use. Of course there was nothing for it but to pay off and send away such useless fellows.
DOBOI, OUR NATIVE COOK AT DINAWA.
DOBOI, OUR NATIVE COOK AT DINAWA.
DOBOI, OUR NATIVE COOK AT DINAWA.
Making due allowance, however, for the fact that they were savages, the general character of my collectors said a great deal for human nature. Doboi was a really good fellow, and had only one reprehensible escapade to his discredit. It was a case of the deceitfulness of wealth! He had worked extremely well and had amassed a small fortune, a blanket, many ramis, and a quantity of tobacco. With these possessions, he became a small king in his village. One day he vanished with all his goods. Now Doboi was under contract to remain with me while I was in the interior, and although he had received much, he had not really worked off his part of the bargain. Accordingly I had him pursued and brought back, and thereafter for the rest of his time he was a good boy. He was fourteen, but had attained to full manhood, and was a very capable fellow.
My best mountain boy, however, was Ow-bow. He was my right hand, my native first officer. I could send him anywhere, for he was quick and alert, but he always stipulated that he must go armed, and believing him to be justified, I invariably provided him with a weapon. He loved firearms passionately, and to see Ow-bow enter a village with his gun over his shoulder was to realise on a small scale what a Roman triumph must have been! He understood the weapon—his fellow-tribesmen did not. Therein lay Ow-bow’s power. He would fire a shot in the air and then lay down the law to his comrades. If there were any possibility of getting what you wanted, Ow-bow would get it. He would, indeed, have done well on an American newspaper. Heunderstood how to make the most of what knowledge he had, and was fully conscious that it gave him superior power, which he was not slow to wield. When he went to a village to recruit carriers, he arrayed himself in his best, donned his finest beads and feathers, and painted his cheeks in scarlet stripes. Thus resplendent, with his gun over his shoulder, he entered the village, strutting consequentially, and immediately made his presence felt. He was a man who would not and could not be refused. He showed his wages and told the tribesmen that they, if they carried for Parki, would become rich in like manner.
More subtle still was his dealing when he had been sent to engage women for grass-cutting or similar employment. Ow-bow was a married man who had permission for his wife to stay in camp with him, and this lady proved his great advocate with her own sex. While Ow-bow waxed eloquent and persuasive with the men, Mrs. Ow-bow would display to the womenkind what wealth had also come to her, and as she reasoned, her sisters were persuaded, and took service with the white man. But Ow-bow’s flourishes with the gun were no mere vainglorious show. In two months’ time he had become a really good shot, and after a morning’s sport would often return to camp with five or six birds. He invariably accounted for his empty cartridges, while other boys would return with spent cases and never a feather to show for them. He grasped the method of aiming at once and never showed any amateurish disposition to squint along the barrel, but got his sights on thebird neatly and quickly and fired without hesitation. He seldom missed.
During the morning, while the boys were out at work, Harry and I would also be engaged with our nets; or, as our collections increased, we would be busy putting specimens together, tending them and seeing that they were not suffering from damp. Sometimes, taking a couple of the laziest boys with me, I descended to the Aculama and followed the stream up its course, collecting as we went. As the boys’ skill increased, it became possible to send them two by two so that several localities could be worked simultaneously. Work, still further afield, fell to Sam, who often went away with five or six carriers on collecting expeditions that lasted a week or a fortnight.
The best time of day for butterflies is from 8A.M.till noon. The boys returned to camp at times varying according to their luck or their laziness, and in any case, we had all returned by three o’clock. Then Doboi or Weiyah cooked a meal which varied in excellence according to the state of the stores or our luck with the gun, and afterwards we took our siesta. The late afternoon or early evening found us at work again on the collections or putting the camp straight. Darkness descended quickly, and when there was no moon we went to the verandah and began collecting moths. On favourable nights we often continued at work till daybreak.
The boys did not care about night work and usually sat round the camp fire smoking, spinning yarns, or crooning their charmingly plaintive mountainmelodies until about 1A.M., when they curled up under the verandah and went to sleep. Occasionally one or two very hard-up young gentlemen, whose need of tobacco was urgent, would volunteer to assist in the moth-catching, but for the most part they preferred free evenings like the young working people of more advanced nations. Visitors from Dinawa dropped in until the camp became a thronged resort. Then unfortunately things began to disappear, and it was necessary to keep the natives at a greater distance and restrict liberty of entrance. “No admission except on business” became the rule for outsiders. On my own boys, I found it was best to impose no cast-iron regulations.
Nor were these all our occupations. Besides the lepidoptera, there were ornithological and botanical specimens to collect and preserve. Of the last, the more succulent required constant care and changing, and some took three weeks to dry. Photography proved a pleasant change, and on nights unfavourable for moths, we darkened the house with blankets and had a spell of developing. At such times one realised poignantly the limitations of a savage country, and the value of things that at home are too commonplace to be remarked. Our chief lack was a good flat shelf. Amateur photographers with luxurious equipment should figure to themselves the discomforts of a ridgy shelf of split bamboo on which no bottle will stand upright. Groping in the dim red light among one’s materials on that crazy ledge was as productive of maledictions as the royal and ancient game itself.
THE NATIVE VILLAGE OF DINAWA.
THE NATIVE VILLAGE OF DINAWA.
THE NATIVE VILLAGE OF DINAWA.
The natives were, at first, very much frightened at the camera, the women especially, and some of them were never reconciled to it. I showed them stereoscopic slides of Papuan views on Negretti and Zambra’s veroscope. One fellow, on seeing his own portrait stand out in bold relief, dropped the stereoscope and ran up a tree. I occasionally allowed a few privileged natives to come into the dark room to watch the developing. At first they were rather alarmed at the red light, but gradually they became interested in the process, and as the image appeared we heard the inevitable “lo-pi-ang.”
Such was our daily life at Dinawa—very enjoyable in the crisp and bracing mountain air that reminded one of an English October. But for the unavoidable cares of camp management and fears for the endurance of our food supply and the safety of our specimens, it would have been altogether ideal.