In the year 1895 I found myself at Cooktown in Queensland, aged 23, accompanied by a fellow adventurer, F.H. Sylvester, and armed with £100, an outfit particularly unsuited to the tropics, and a letter of introduction from the then Governor of New Zealand, the Earl of Glasgow, to the Lieutenant-Governor of British New Guinea, Sir William MacGregor.

After two or three weeks of waiting, we took passage by the mail schooner Myrtle, 150 tons, one of two schooners owned by Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co., of Sydney, and subsidized by the British New Guinea Government to carry monthly mails to that possession; in fact they were then the only means of communication between New Guinea and the rest of the world. These two vessels, after a chequered career in the South Seas, as slavers—then euphoniously termed in Australia “labour” vessels—had, by the lapse of time and purchase by a firm of high repute and keen commercial ambition, now been promoted to the dignity of carrying H.M. Mails, Government stores for the Administration of New Guinea, and supplies to the branches of the firm at Samarai and Port Moresby; and were, under the energetic superintendence of their respective masters, Steel and Inman, extending the commercial interests of their owners throughout both the British and German territories bordering on the Coral Sea.

Good old ships long since done with, the bones of one lie scattered on a reef, the other when last I saw her was a coal hulk in a Queensland port. And good old Scotch firm of trade grabbers that owned them, sending their ships, in spite of any risk, wherever a possible bawbee was to be made, and taking their hundred per cent. of profit with the same dour front they took their frequently trebled loss. Mopping up the German trade until the day came when the heavily subsidized ships of the Nord Deutscher Lloyd drove them out; as well they might, for in one scale hung the efforts of a small company of British merchants, unassisted as ever by its country or Government, the other, a practically Imperial Company backed by the resources of a vast Empire.

But to return to the Myrtle, then lying in the bay off the mouth of the Endeavour River, to which we were ferried in one of her own boats, perched on the top of hen coops filled with screeching poultry, several protesting pigs, and two goats; all mixed up with a belated mail bag, parcels sent by local residents to friends in New Guinea, and three hot and particularly cross seamen. The goats we learnt later were destined to serve as mutton for the Government House table; the pigs and hens were a little private venture of the ship’s cook, these being intended for barter with natives.

On our arrival at the ship’s side, we were promptly boosted up a most elusive rope ladder by the seamen who had ferried us across, the schooner meanwhile rolling in a nasty cross sea and raising the devil’s own din with her flapping sails. Tumbled over the bulwarks on to the deck, we were seized upon by a violent little man in a frantic state of excitement, perspiration, and bad language, and ten seconds later found ourselves helping him to haul on the tackles of the boat that brought us, which was then being hoisted in, pigs, goats, luggage, etc., holus bolus; this operation completed, our violent little man introduced himself as Mr. Wisdell, the ship’s cook, and volunteered to show us to our berths, after which, as soon as the bustle of getting under way was over, he stated his intention of formerly introducing us to the captain.

Just as we were somewhat dismally becoming quite assured that our imaginations were not deceiving us as to the number of beetles and cockroaches a berth of most attenuated size could contain; also beginning to find that the motions of a schooner of 150 tons were decidedly upsetting to our stomachs, after those of big vessels, Mr. Wisdell returned and, diving into a locker, produced a bottle of whisky, some sodawater, and four tumblers. Three of the latter he placed with the other materials in the fiddle of the cabin’s table, the remaining tumbler he held behind his back. Then politely bowing to us, Mr. Wisdell signed that we were to precede him up the companion way on to the poop, where a red-faced, cheery looking little man, clothed in immaculate white ducks, gazed fixedly at the sails or at the man at the wheel, a regard that the helmsman looked as if he would willingly have done without. To him Mr. Wisdell marched, and then “Mr. Sylvester—Captain Inman—Captain Inman—Mr. Monckton—etc.” Never did Clapham dancing master receive the bows of his class with greater dignity and grace, than did Captain Inman receive those which, modelling our deportment on that of Mr. Wisdell, we made him.

Then Mr. Wisdell, still carrying the tumbler behind his back, spake thus: “Perhaps, Captain Inman, you would like to offer the gentlemen a little something in the cabin?” Captain Inman unbent: “Billy, the mate has the blasted fever; send the bo’sun.” Upon the appearance of that potentate, and his having apparently taken over the command, by dint of fixing the man at the wheel with a basilisk glare, Captain Inman led the way to the cabin, where Mr. Wisdell, kindly placing a glass in each of our hands, drew attention to the bottle and, with deprecating little coughs directed towards his commander, modestly backed away. Captain Inman, however, was well versed in the etiquette the occasion demanded and rose to it. “What, Billy, only three glasses! We want another!” Out shot Mr. Wisdell’s glass from behind his back and the occasion was complete.

Two days of violent sea-sickness then intervened, the misery of which was broken only by the visits of Mr. Wisdell, or as better acquaintance now permitted us to call him, “Billy,” bearing “mutton” broth prepared from goat. These animals, by the way, appear to be indigenous to the streets of Cooktown and to frequent them in large herds; their sustenance seems to be gleaned from the rubbish heaps and back yards; for of grass, at the time I was there, there was none, and their camping places were for choice the doorsteps and verandahs of the hotels, from which vantage points, at frequent intervals, the slumbers of the lodgers were cheered by the sound of violent strife, and sweetened by the peculiar fragrance diffused by ancient goats.

Then came one fine and memorable morning when our cheerful little skipper called us to look at Samarai, at that time called by the hideous name of Dinner Island, towards the anchorage of which we were slowly moving, the while, from every direction, a swarm of canoes paddled furiously towards us, crowded with fuzzy-headed natives, all eager to earn a few sticks of tobacco, by assisting in the discharge of the cargo we carried. The canoes were warned off pending the arrival of a health officer to grant pratique, and that official soon appeared in the person of Mr. R.E. Armit, a well-set-up, soldierly looking man of about fifty years of age. Poor Armit, long since killed by the deadly malaria of the Northern Division.

Mr. Armit was Subcollector of Customs and goodness knows what else at Samarai, and was himself an extraordinary personality. An accomplished linguist, widely read and travelled, I never found a subject about which Armit did not know something and usually a very great deal. He, however, did not possess a faculty for making or retaining money, and did possess a particularly caustic tongue and pen, which, when the mood took him, he would exercise even upon his superior officers; hence he was frequently in hot water and never lacked enemies.

Samarai boasted neither wharf nor jetty; our cargo was therefore simply shot over the side into the multitude of canoes and thence ferried to the beach, with such assistance as the ship’s boats could afford.

Dinner Island, or as I shall from now on term it, Samarai, is an island of about fifty acres. The hill, which forms the centre of the island, rises from what was then a malodorous swamp, surrounded by a strip of coral beach. The whole island was a gazetted penal district, and the town consisted of the Residency, a fine roomy bungalow built by the Imperial Government for the then Commissioner, General Sir Peter Scratchley—the first of New Guinea officials to be claimed by malaria—and now the headquarters of the Resident Magistrate for the Eastern Division; a small three-roomed building of native grass and round poles dubbed the Subcollector’s house; a gaol of native material, the roof of which served as a bond store for dutiable goods, and a cemetery: the three latter appeared to be well filled. There was also a small single-roomed galvanized iron building which served as a Custom’s house; in it was employed a clerk, unpaid; he was an affable gentleman of mixed French and Greek parentage, and was at the time awaiting his trial for murder. Two small stores, the one owned by Burns, Philp and Co., of Sydney, and the other by Mr. William Whitten, now the Honble. William Whitten, M.L.C., completed the main buildings.

Mr. Whitten was the son of a Queen’s Messenger, since dead of malaria, and possessed an adventurous disposition which had taken him off to sea as a boy. His first appearance in New Guinea was as one of the personal guard of Sir Peter Scratchley, a body which Sir William MacGregor replaced with his fine native constabulary. Whitten had saved money enough to purchase a small cutter, with which he had begun trading for bÊche-de-mer in the Trobriand Islands. While dealing with the natives for that commodity, he had discovered that pearls of a fair quality existed in a small oyster forming one of the staple foods of the natives. Whitten purchased large quantities of the pearls from the natives for almost nothing, and had he only been able to keep his discovery to himself, would have had fortune in his grasp. Unfortunately for him, the sale of his prize in Australia brought down upon him a host of other competitors, and the natives, having discovered that the white man was keenly desirous of obtaining what were to them worthless stones, raised their prices higher and higher until there was little to be gained in the trade.

Whitten, however, had made enough to bring a young brother from England, purchase a bigger and better vessel, also a large quantity of merchandise. At the date of writing, Whitten Brothers own numerous plantations, several steamers and sailing vessels, conduct a banking business, have branches in the gold-fields, and are the largest employers of labour in the country; in 1895, however, this greatness was as yet undreamt of by them.

Other than the Residency and the glorified sardine box doing duty as the Custom House, the only other building in Samarai formed of European materials—by which I mean sawn timber and fastened with nails—was the bungalow occupied by Burns, Philp’s manager, and situated on perhaps the best site there. Gangs of prisoners—native—were engaged quarrying in the hill of Samarai and filling up the swamp, a palpably necessary work. Curiously enough in a pleasantly written little book by Colonel Kenneth Mackay, C.B., entitled “Across Papua,” I noticed a reference to this work, which was ultimately the means of stamping malaria out of the place. The author attributed it, amongst others, to Doctor Jones, a health officer who came to New Guinea in recent years. This statement is quite incorrect; the credit of banishing malaria from Samarai belongs to Sir William MacGregor, and to him alone.

A few sheds, occupied by boat-builders and carpenters, scattered along the beach, complete the buildings of Samarai. Of hotels and accommodation houses there were none, but then there was no travelling public to accommodate; gold-diggers to and from the islands of Sudest and St. Aignan camped in their tents, which as a rule consisted of a single sheet of calico stretched over a pole; traders lived in their vessels. Alcoholic refreshment was dispensed at the stores; Burns, Philp’s manager, for instance, or one of the Whittens, ceasing from their book-keeping labours to serve thirsty customers with lager beer or more potent fluids over the store counter. Whitten Brothers had a large roofed balcony with no sides, situated at the back of the store, and here at night, as to a general club-house, foregathered all the Europeans of the island. Under a centre table was placed a supply of varied drinks, and as men came in and bottles were emptied, they were hurled over the edge on to the soft coral sand. In the morning one of the Whittens caused the bottles to be collected by a native boy, counted them, and avoided the trouble of book-keeping by the simple method of dividing the sum total of bottles by the number of men he knew, or that his boy told him, had visited the “house”; each man therefore, whether a thirsty person or not, was charged exactly the same as his neighbour.

All Samarai was planted with cocoanut palms, the dodging of falling nuts from which, in windy weather, served to keep the inhabitants spry. Pyjamas were the almost universal wear, varied in the case of some traders by a strip of turkey-red twill, worn petticoat fashion, and a cotton vest.

Among the traders were two picturesque ruffians, alike in nothing, save the ability with which they conducted their business and dodged hanging. Each had spent his life trading in the South Seas and had amassed a fair fortune. Of them and their exploits I have heard endless yarns. Of one of these men, who was known far and wide through the South Seas as “Nicholas the Greek”—Heaven knows why, for his real name sounded English, and his reckless courage was certainly not typical of the modern Greek—the following stories are told.

A vessel had been cut out in one of the New Guinea or Louisade Islands—which it was I have forgotten—and the crew massacred. When this became known, a man-of-war or Government ship was sent to punish the murderers, and in especial to secure a native chief, who was primarily responsible. The punitive ship came across Nicholas and engaged him as pilot and interpreter, he being offered one hundred pounds when the man wanted was secured. Nicholas safely piloted his charge to some remote island where the inhabitants, doubtless having guilty consciences, promptly fled for the hills, where it was impossible for ordinary Europeans to follow them. He then offered to go alone to try and locate them, and, armed with a ship’s cutlass and revolver, disappeared on his quest. Some days elapsed, then in the night a small canoe appeared alongside the ship, from which emerged Nicholas, bearing in his hand a bundle. Marching up to the officer commanding, he undid it, and rolled at the officer’s feet a gory human head, remarking, “Here is your man, I couldn’t bring the lot of him. I’ll thank you for that hundred.”

Another story was that Nicholas on one occasion was attacked and frightfully slashed about by his native crew and then thrown overboard, he shamming dead. Sinking in the water he managed to get under the keel, along which he crawled like a crawfish until he came to the rudder, upon which he roosted under the counter until night fell and his crew slept. Then he climbed on board, secured a tomahawk, and either killed or drove overboard the whole crew, they thinking he was an avenging ghost. This done, badly wounded and unassisted, he worked his vessel to a neighbouring island, where, being sickened and disgusted with men, he shipped and trained a crew of native women, with whom he sailed for many years, in fact, I think, until the day came when Sir W. MacGregor appeared upon the scene and passed the Native Labour Ordinance, which, amongst other things, prohibited the carrying of women on vessels.

Of Nicholas also is told the story that once, in the bad old pre-protectorate days, so many charges were brought against him by missionaries and merchantmen that a man-of-war was sent to arrest him, wherever found, and bring him to trial. He, through a friendly trader, got wind of the fact that he was being sought for, and accordingly laid his plans for the bamboozlement of his would-be captors. Summoning his crew, he informed them that his father was dead, and that as he had his father’s name of Nicholas, his name must now be “Peter,” as the custom of his tribe was, even as that of some New Guinea peoples, viz. not to mention the name of the dead lest harm befall. Then he sailed in search of the pursuing warship and, eventually finding her, went on board and volunteered his services as pilot, which were gladly accepted. To all of his haunts he then guided that ship, but in all the reply of the native was the same, when questioned as to his whereabouts, “We know not Nicholas, he is gone. Peter your pilot comes in his place. Nicholas is dead, and ’tis wrong to mention the name of the dead.” It was said of him that on no part of his body could a man’s hand be placed without touching the scar of some old wound—a story I can fully believe.

The second of this interesting couple was known as “German Harry,” a man of insignificant appearance and little physical strength, but the most venomous little scorpion, when thoroughly roused, it has ever been my lot to meet; at the same time he was the most generous-hearted little man towards the hard up and unfortunate. He had also spent a considerable portion of his time in dodging arrest or explaining certain alleged manslaughters of his before various tribunals. I remember one little specimen I witnessed of Harry’s fighting methods, and from that understood why the biggest of bullies and “hard cases” treated him with respect.

A vessel, owned and commanded by a hulking brute of a Dane, had come over from Queensland bringing, amongst other things, some recent papers, one of which contained an account of a disgraceful wife-beating case, in which the Dane figured and in which he had escaped—as such brutes generally do in civilized countries—by the payment of a miserable fine.

As Harry, the Dane and I, were sitting in a gold-field store, Harry read the account, and then gazing at the Dane, said something in German, of which “Schweinhund” was the only word I understood. A glass of rum promptly smashed on Harry’s teeth, followed by a bellow of rage and the thrower’s rush. Harry in a single instant became a lunatic, and flying like a wild cat at the other’s face, kicking, biting, and clawing, bore the big man to the ground, from where, in a few seconds, agonized yells of, “He is eating me,” told us the Dane was in dire trouble. Harry was dragged away by main force, and we found half his victim’s nose bitten off, while a bloodshot and protruding eye showed how nearly his thumb had got its work in. The wife-beater went off a mass of funk and misery, while Harry proceeded calmly to attend to the glass cuts on his face. “You are a nice cheerful sort of little hyena,” I remarked to Harry afterwards. “What sort of fighting do you call that?” “That? Oh, that’s nothing. I only wanted to frighten him or I would have had his eye out as well. He won’t throw a glass at German Harry again in a hurry.”

Some years later I met German Harry in a Sydney street, and though I had long since thought I was beyond being surprised at anything he did, he yet gave me a further shock when he told me he had purchased a “Matrimonial Agency.”