The new Governor was a man as different from Sir William MacGregor as chalk from cheese. Mr. Le Hunte (as he was then) was a pleasant, genial Irishman; greeting each one of his officers, as if he were the very man he most wanted to see; ever being painfully anxious to avoid hurting any one’s feelings, or being obliged to censure them. He certainly was a man who inspired great liking and affection in his subordinates; but he would sooner cajole a slack man into doing his work, by increasing his pay or easing his duties, than spur him on with a caustic reprimand or a little additional work.

The Governor brought with him Captain Barton, late West India Regiment, and the Honble. C.G. Murray, as private secretary and assistant private secretary respectively—the latter without pay. One of these men, at the present time of writing, is First Minister to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the other, Administrator of St. Vincent; whilst in New Guinea they each received appointments in the Service.

At Nivani, after I had handed over the Station to Campbell, the Governor desired me to accompany his party in the Merrie England, on her round voyage of inspection among the islands, and back to Port Moresby, where another appointment would be found for me. Devoutly hoping that the new billet would not have anything to do with Customs or Treasury, or be in the Gulf of Papua, I thankfully accepted the offer, and promptly attached myself to Judge Winter as unpaid associate. The Merrie England visited Sudest, St. Aignan, Rossel, and Woodlark Islands, where nothing of interest or moment took place; from thence she went to the Trobriands.

Here the Governor decided that he would walk across the island, through old Enamakala’s village; as the track was good and the country flat all the way, the journey could very easily be accomplished in two days. Sir George and his staff, being new to the country and utterly ignorant of local conditions, consulted me as to the method of procedure. A little friction occurred at the beginning of this journey: for I found that, from something that Moreton had told him, his Excellency thought it inadvisable to carry arms or to take more than a few police. The Commandant and the travelling patrol were accordingly to be sent round the island in the Merrie England, to await us on the other side; the shore party was to consist of the Governor, the Judge, Barton, Murray, and myself, with the Governor’s boat’s crew and a score of local carriers. I, of course, had now no police of my own. Finding what the arrangements were to be, I went to my cabin, buckled on my revolver, and borrowed a Winchester rifle from the Chief Officer of the Merrie England. Then I went to Captain Barton, and unbosomed myself in this way. “We have already learnt in New Guinea the folly of proceedings such as this: you might walk unarmed across the island a score of times, and nothing happen; or you might be attacked the very first time, and wiped out.”

Captain Barton and I then went together to the Governor, who was talking to Judge Winter, and Barton told him about my protest. “I have been assured by Mr. Moreton, that he walked across the island with nothing but his walking stick,” said his Excellency. I groaned. “Moreton has been guilty of that folly, sir; but Moreton is known to the people, and what he can do another cannot; also he only risked his own life, and not the lives of the Governor and the Chief Justice.” “You really think it unsafe to cross unarmed, Monckton?” asked Judge Winter. “If we do it, sir, I consider that we shall incur an unnecessary and very grave risk,” I replied. The Judge turned round, walked to his cabin, and returned wearing a heavy revolver at his belt. The Governor turned his shoulder to me pettishly; but when we got into the boats, I noticed that both Barton and Murray were wearing their revolvers. As soon as we got on shore, Barton told me to take command of the police. “Then first detail two men to keep the Governor in sight all the time,” I said. Mr. Le Hunte carried a butterfly net, was a very slow walker, and kept perpetually crashing off into the scrub in pursuit of butterflies.

We halted for lunch in a village: the chiefs were presented to the Governor, a large crowd of natives assembled, and the personal servants of the Governor, the Judge and Murray, began trading with them for curios and betel-nut. Suddenly, there arose an angry clamour among the local natives, and we heard the voice of the Governor raised in anger. I yelled to the police to stand to their arms, and—with Barton—rushed off to Mr. Le Hunte, whose orderly we found holding a native by the arm, whilst a large number of others chattered angrily. It appeared that the Governor’s boy had paid a native for a large bunch of betel-nut, the native had then tried to bolt with both betel-nut and payment; the boy complained to Mr. Le Hunte, who promptly commanded his orderly to seize the man and demand return of either the betel-nut or the payment—hence the row. The affair was soon arranged. “Well, sir,” I whispered to Judge Winter, “you see how easily friction can arise, out of nothing; what sort of fools should we have looked, ten minutes ago, without our revolvers?” “His Excellency seems to be very impulsive,” remarked the Judge. Sir George Le Hunte (as he afterwards became) certainly was very impulsive, and it was made worse by an entire lack of fear of consequences. I remember once, at a later period, visiting a village on the Fly River with him, and getting a bad fright, through that same trait in his character.

I was returning from leave, and joined the Merrie England at Thursday Island. Barton was then Commandant, and there had been a fuss on the Fly River, brought about in this way. A native Mission teacher had gone up the river to an enormous Dobu, i.e. a huge tribal house, divided by partitions into family quarters, meeting halls, etc., in which there was a sacred place, where the natives kept some sort of god. The fool of a Mission teacher had torn down their god, and had just managed to escape, but it was in the midst of a storm of arrows. He then complained to another fool—a Government officer—who proceeded to the spot and burned down the Dobu: destroying not only the building that sheltered about five hundred people, but also the whole of their personal belongings and property with it. The homeless natives, suffering under a sense of injustice, became as venomous as a lot of scorched snakes. Sir George dismissed the officer responsible, and was proceeding there to restore friendly relations, and to compensate the natives for their loss.

The site of the Dobu was in a narrow mangrove-fringed creek, running into the Fly River, and afforded excellent cover for archers. Barton and myself were in the constabulary boat, which was filled with keen-eyed men, who were prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. Sir George was in his own gig, manned only by her crew, who of course all had their backs towards the direction in which they were going, and who would have had to drop their oars in order to seize their rifles. The proper course, and the course adopted by us—with the Governor’s consent—was, that the fighting boat should be in advance. Imagine, therefore, our disgust and dismay when, just as we were well within comfortable arrow range of the mangroves ahead, Sir George suddenly stood up, and commanded us to fall to the rear. “What shall I do?” said Barton. “Don’t hear him,” I said; “if he is killed, we shall be blamed.” A very angry and imperative bellow now came from behind us, to which Barton was forced to pay attention, and very reluctantly we dropped to the rear. By a lucky chance the natives did not see us coming, so we were able to land before being discovered by them and then to make peaceful overtures; but a more unreasonable, impulsive, and dangerous action than that of Sir George I have never known; for he not only exposed his own bulky form to the risk of arrows, but the backs also of his defenceless crew, and our crowded boat as well; since we should not have been able to come into action, for fear of killing him.

Sir George Le Hunte was a most kindly man and, as a rule, very considerate to his officers; but these impulsive actions of his were absolutely damnable. If he had been killed (as well he might have been), how could his officers have explained why the Governor, with a helpless crew, came to be in the position of danger? He would not have been there to exculpate us, and the result would have been that we—for the remainder of our lives—would have suffered under the stigma of leaving him in the lurch.

We completed our journey across the island without any further incident worthy of note, old Enamakala being very friendly. Then we sailed for Goodenough Island; there, Satadeai collected some natives, and gave an eye-opening exhibition of sling-stone throwing. “I never before realized, what a poor chance Goliath had against David,” remarked Judge Winter, after he had watched the slingmen for a few minutes. At Wedau, on the north-east coast, the Governor and Judge went up to the Mission Station, while Barton, Murray and I went shooting: as I noticed the state of the tide in the streams the idea occurred to me that my friends might like to witness a peculiar method of catching fish. “Would you like to see a fishing even stranger than the Dobu kite fishers?” I asked. They would most certainly: so I took them to the mouth of a small stream, where a row of four or five women stood in it, holding shallow scoop nets in their hands and attentively watching the water. Presently, first one and then another in succession leant forward and milked her breasts into the water; then very carefully and quietly she inserted her net under the surface, and brought it up full of tiny little fish; after which she emptied her basket, and resumed her watch.

“Ugh! disgusting!” said Murray. “No doubt,” I replied; “but you will see more disgusting things than that before you leave. Why, one of those very women and her daughter dug up a corpse and ate it, because they wanted to be with child; some sorcerer or witch having told them that it was the best way to ensure it.” “What happened then?” asked the shuddering Murray. “Judge Winter gave them six months for desecrating a sepulchre; there is no law against cannibalism,” I told him. Native tradition on the north-east coast tells how a fearful epidemic swept through the island many years ago; it must undoubtedly have been small-pox, as several old men still showed pitted faces caused by the disease. It was followed by a year of famine, during which the women exchanged their children with each other for culinary purposes, and every one went in fear of being knocked on the head and eaten by his neighbour. The people from East Cape to Bartle Bay are a miserable, decadent lot.

A great portion of the coast is hilly grass land, carrying excellent pasture for cattle, but containing also a nasty spear-grass, the seed of which will work its barbed way through one’s clothes, and in the case of sheep right into the carcase. The Bishop of New Guinea once bought a flock of sheep, intending to breed from them, and turned them out on the hills. I came along some months later, and noticed the sheep wanted shearing very badly. Bishop Stone-Wigg then told me that he had got shears, but no one in the Mission knew how to shear; so accordingly I volunteered to do it. The police rounded up and caught the sheep, and I set to work. I made two discoveries: one was that the breeding flock consisted mainly of wethers, the other, that their skins and flesh were literally stuck full of spear-grass seed, the skins feeling like a very worn-out horse-hair sofa. When I had concluded my shearing operations, I went to the Mission house, where I found that the natives, who had been lost in amazement at the performance, had sent to ask the Bishop, “What the poor sheep had done, to cause the magistrate and police to cut off all their hair?”

From Wedau, the Merrie England went on to Samarai, and thence to Port Moresby.

Upon our arrival at Port Moresby, I accompanied the Governor to Government House, there to await an appointment; in the meantime I assisted Barton in engaging native servants, and also in other things which were strange to a new-comer. There was at that time a European market gardener, named Weaver, living alone some miles out of Port Moresby (he was, by the way, afterwards murdered). He was remarkable for two things: the moroseness of his temper, and the size of his feet. He got his boots by special order through Burns, Philp and Co.; and on one occasion, the bootmaker to whom the size was sent, forwarded children’s boots, thinking that it could not possibly mean size thirteen in men’s boots. Weaver came in with a horse-load of vegetables, and went to Burns Philp for his boots, where he was given the parcel containing the children’s boots. When he had opened it and had seen what it contained, he nearly went mad—thinking a joke had been played upon him. At last, after he had half wrecked the store and frightened the unfortunate clerks into fits, he was made to understand that there were no other boots for him; he then seized his horse and brought it over to Government House, where I began to buy his vegetables. While so engaged, Murray came out and said “good-morning” to Weaver, a salutation that was received with a glare and a grunt. Then Murray—who still possessed the finicking airs and graces of the exquisite of the Bachelors’ Club—took out a dainty little cigarette case, and proffered a cigarette to the clay pipe and strongest of tobacco smoking Weaver. Weaver thought it was another insult of the small boot variety, and before his stream of lurid blasphemy, Murray fled indoors. I soothed him, and went on buying cabbages. Out then came the Governor, asked me who Weaver was, and in his genial way shook his hand and asked after his health. “Another blanker!” groaned Weaver. “None the blanky better for your asking,” said that courteous person; and his Excellency fled. “There appear to be some very peculiar people in this country, Monckton,” remarked the Governor at breakfast. “Very true,” I said, “and when you, sir, have completed your term of service here, you will think, as I do, that the whole country is a weird compound of comic opera and tragedy, with a very narrow margin between them. I have been buying cabbages for you this morning; Heaven only knows where you will send me, or what I shall be doing next week.”

When we first arrived at Port Moresby, we found that Ballantine was away in the hills with a relief expedition for H. Stuart-Russell, who had been sent to survey a road over the Owen Stanley Range to the Yodda valley gold-field in the north-east; a gold-field that, at the time, could only be reached by ascending the Kumusi River to Bogi, and then doing a ten days’ march inland. Stuart-Russell had sent out word that he was in hostile country, and had run out of supplies.

One morning, the Governor called me to his room and said, “Ballantine has returned, having failed to connect with Russell: I am getting very anxious about him, and intend to dispatch another relief expedition with you in command. The Government Secretary has been instructed to make all arrangements, and you should be able to leave to-morrow morning: here are your minutes of instructions.” I glanced at my orders, and my heart sank: first of all, Muzzy to organize the expedition: as well have a well-meaning hen-wife; then, when I did find Russell, I was to place myself under his orders; Russell, whom I knew to be a surveyor, and ignorant of anything else. Wending my way to the Commandant, I worried him about the personnel of the constabulary I was to take, and at last got him to include Keke and Ade in the lot; he had been detailing for me all the rotters and recruits in barracks. My next interview was with Mr. Musgrave, who I found had provided a most elaborate equipment of stores, etc.—a collection that would take about six hundred men to carry—and had engaged the Hanuabada natives and a mule team to carry it to the Laloki River, which was about seven miles distant.

The Hanuabada (Port Moresby) carriers were the most pampered lot of lying, lazy loafers in New Guinea; they were to receive in pay one shilling per day, the ordinary Government pay was twopence, and a heavy ration of rice, meat, biscuit, tea, sugar, etc.; as well as to be equipped with blankets, tents, cooking utensils, and all the rest of it, for this one night’s camp at the Laloki; and this, too, on a warm tropical night. When I looked into the arrangements made by Muzzy, I felt inclined to sit down and cry. First, I had the awful Hanuabadas as far as the Laloki; then in some mysterious way I was supposed to transport my stores to the Brown River—Heaven only knows how. Muzzy, however, suggested I should bribe the Hanuabadas, by double pay, to go on there; then, I was to pick up Russell’s time-expired and worn-out carriers, and “induce” them to return with me to the Main Range. Muzzy had had a flat-bottomed, square-ended, bull-nosed brute of a punt built, and placed upon the Brown River: a thing calculated by him to carry about five tons, which I was instructed to take to the head of the Brown; this was by him fondly supposed to solve the transport difficulties.

“Look here, sir,” I said to Mr. Musgrave, once I had grasped the full beauty of his arrangements. “I understand speed is the very essence of this expedition. Let me chuck all arrangements at present made; give me twenty constabulary, forty fresh and strong carriers, allow me to spend twenty pounds in meat extract, pea flour and cocoa, and follow my own road; then I will guarantee to fetch Russell out in a fortnight.” “Mr. Monckton,” said the Government Secretary, “Mr. Chester, Mr. Giulianetti and I, have given a great deal of thought to this expedition, and our arrangements are perfect; you are to carry them out.” I did not dare tell Muzzy what I thought about it all. “Supposing, Mr. Musgrave,” I said, “Russell’s carriers refuse to return with me, or that they are sick and exhausted, what am I to do?” “I have made the most elaborate arrangements,” said Muzzy, “it is for you to carry them out.”

Accordingly I sought out the driver of the mule team, and led him to the pub; after I had loaded him up with whisky, I asked, “Could you get that team of yours on as far as the Brown River?” “Yes,” was the reply. “Could you and the team work for twenty-four hours at a stretch, if necessary?” “Yes, if it’s made worth my while, and the mules are fed,” he said. I then saw my way out of the difficulty of getting from the Laloki River to the Brown; accordingly I told the driver I would give him half my month’s pay, and steal the Hanuabadas’ rice for his mules. “Put it there,” he said, spitting on his hand and holding it out for me to shake. “I won’t take your pay, it’s poor enough; take a bottle or two of rum with you, and I will work my blanky mules until their eye-balls start from their heads and play marbles along their back-bones.”

In the early morning, accordingly, I made my start; and half a mile from Port Moresby abandoned the biscuits, blankets and sugar of the Hanuabadas. From the Laloki, the carriers returned to Port, and I went on to the Brown River accompanied by my police and the mule team: there I at once stationed a picket to catch Russell’s returning carriers, who were drifting down in threes, fives, and tens. The police and I then loaded the punt with stores, ready for the ascent of the river, which is a rapid mountain stream, full of whirlpools, rocks, snags, and rapids. From here, I sent back the mules to bring up another load of stores, and sat down to await their return. One day passed, two days passed, still no sign of the mules; I sent some police off in search of them, and then—with such carriers as had by now come down from Russell’s party—I began to haul that infernal punt up the river. The punt at once started to go to pieces: it was built of the heaviest timber, fastened together with trumpery flimsy wire nails; the planking of the bottom, instead of running lengthways, ran across, and therefore, whenever we began to haul her over a rapid, the edges caught on the sharp rocks of the bottom and opened up—making the thing leak like a basket. A ring had been fixed on one end, with a rope tied on it for hauling on; this ring was attached to a plate fastened by two one-inch screws, which were fondly supposed, by its architect, to withstand the strain of large numbers of men hauling a dead weight of five tons up a rapid. After one hour’s experience of this ark, we dragged it ashore, plaited vines all round it to keep it together, caulked it with strips of blanket, and made a rope cradle all round to haul on. Then we went on again.

The carriers, I was now using, were men recruited from Mekeo; their time had expired, and they were keenly anxious to return to their homes. It was only by a vigorous use of cleaning rod that we could “induce” them to work, and we had to keep them under perpetual guard, lest they should desert; also they could not swim, so that when we came to a deep crossing we had to haul them through on a rope, and, in addition, forcibly tie them to the rope, as the procedure was not one they relished. Mile by mile we fought our way up that awful river; the constabulary and I stripped naked, hauling, sweating, swimming, and swearing, until at last we came to a whirlpool under a rapid. The police were swimming alongside the punt, the carriers hauling on the rope, I was steering the ark by a rough paddle, when suddenly a swirl of the current carried her into the whirlpool. I yelled at the carriers to slack the rope, but they lost their heads and pulled harder: punt, stores and I, accordingly disappeared into the swirl, and then those mutton-headed carriers let go the rope altogether. I am a bad swimmer at the best, and was about done in the swirl: the police were doing their best to stem the current and get to me. At last Keke managed to crawl out on a bank and, running along, dived from a rock, caught me round the waist as he swept past, and carried me to a sharp-edged rock, upon which he tore his feet badly in climbing out. I lay on a rock, and coughed up about half the Brown River. Rifles, stores, clothes, all were gone; mother-naked stood the constabulary and I, with the exception of one flannel police shirt which had washed ashore, and which I promptly annexed. Nothing now remained for us but to return to our first camp, get fresh stores, and start again.

A melancholy procession returned to that camp, even my shirt failing to add dignity to our march. I then heard that the mule driver had contrived to let his mules stray on the night of his departure, and was still engaged in hunting for them. I sent a letter to Captain Barton, conveying a blistering curse concerning all punts, and asses who drove mules; and asking him to forward me some fresh rifles and clothing for the police, as well as some clothes and boots for myself. Whilst awaiting their arrival, I met with afresh misfortune; for in moving about the camp, I jumped with my bare foot upon a rusty nail, fixed in a piece of board belonging to an old meat case left by Russell, and ran it clean through my foot. I feared tetanus; but hunting in a medicine chest at the camp, I found sticks of lunar caustic, and decided to cauterize the wound with it. Calling Keke, I showed him how to poke a probe through the puncture; and when he apparently understood, I took a small piece of caustic and shoved it into the hole. “Now then, Keke, shove it through,” I said, as I lay on my stomach and elevated the sole of my foot in the air. Keke gave a gentle push, and then—as I gave a howl—stopped, the stuff burning like hell fire. “Shove it through, you blank blank idiot!” I yelled. “Oh, master, I hurt you too much, I am frightened,” said Keke. My howls, however, attracted Ade, who, grasping the situation and my foot at the same time, rammed the caustic through with the probe. “Keke,” I remarked, as I cooled my injured foot in a bucket of water, “if you had not hauled me out of the river, I’d break your thick head.” “I am a lance-corporal, not a doctor,” said that injured individual; “if there is any more of this, Ade can be doctor.”

A few days later my rifles and clothes arrived, also the missing mules: again we took that awful punt up the river, this time successfully, though the amount of labour we expended upon it would have transported the stores three times over.

The day after we quitted the river to strike over the mountains, Lario, a Malay, who had been in charge of a log fort for Russell higher up, came in with a large number of time-expired and more or less worn-out carriers. Howls of dismay went up from these unfortunate natives when they learnt that they were to turn round and go back with me. Much “moral” suasion had to be used by the police before they would “volunteer”; some did succeed in sneaking away and making a bolt for the coast, but our watch was so strict that few of the volunteers escaped. Lario was a splendid chap, loyal, brave, and full of resource; and I was more than pleased when he, though time-expired, consented to turn round and accompany me as second in command. I went carefully through all the carriers with Lario, in order to cast out—for return to the coast—all those who were unfit for service: very, very sorry I felt for the poor wretches (though I did not dare show it), as man by man they were examined; some happy ones being cast for return, to the open envy of their companions. They were all Mission boys from the Mekeo district, flat country men, non-swimming, and singularly ill-adapted for the work in which they were engaged. That night—through Lario—they asked my permission to hold a prayer meeting; afterwards Lario told me that they prayed that the hearts of myself, Lario and the police, would be softened towards them.

Day after day of climbing over awful country passed, we following a line cut or blazed through the bush by Russell; at intervals we came to log huts or forts, containing a couple of police and a few carriers: these I added to the expedition, both for purposes of speed and also in order to bring the biggest possible force to Russell. On one occasion, while following the blazed line along the top of a razor-backed spur, we came to where it narrowed to a crumbling knife-edged track, with a sheer drop on one side, looking down upon clouds, and on the other, the dull murmur of a river could be heard a thousand feet below. I am a fearful man, and I hate heights; my head always whirls on them, and my muscles become as flaccid as those of a pampered lap-dog. I gazed at that spot, and then said to Lario, “Surely Mr. Russell is not a tight-rope walker, or fool enough to go over there.” “I don’t know,” said Lario; “the blazes lead to it, but I’ve not been here before.” The carriers swore that Russell had not been that way, but I did not believe them, as they were always full of reasons why we should turn back. As for the police, so long as I went over, they would follow—even into the nethermost pit. Fine men, were the old New Guinea constabulary. “It is no good looking at it, Lario,” I said at last, “I am half-paralysed with funk, but here goes.” Then, afraid to look down, I walked as far as I could, with the cold sweat of fear streaming from me; then I sat, straddled that fearsome spur with my legs, and slowly—leap-frog fashion—began to work my way across the thirty feet of the worst part, the stones and dirt I dislodged falling so far that their impact sent up no sound. Half-way across, my thin cotton khaki breeches began to tear badly with the stones; as I went, I suddenly felt as if ten thousand red-hot pincers were tearing at the portion of my anatomy exposed by the torn garments; I stood the agony for a second, then—unable to bear it any longer—leapt to my feet, and ran like a tight-rope walker across that narrow crumbling ridge. Reaching safety and a wider part of the spur, I sat down and tore a score of bull-dog ants from my skin; I had worked my way clean over a nest of the malignant little beasts. Then I turned and looked at Lario; his teeth were chattering and his knees knocking together. “Oh, my God, sir,” he wailed, “you did frighten me.” “Come on, Lario,” I replied; “if I spend the remainder of my life in the mountains, nothing will take me over that place again.” Lario set his teeth, walked as far as I had done, then sat down and started my leap-frog method of progression: suddenly he stopped, his eyes bulged, and he jumped to his feet and ran to where I was standing, when he also began to tear those infernal little pests from his person. Curiously enough, though the carriers were flat country men, they did not mind heights nor did they suffer from vertigo; and after one of the police had walked out, and swept the ants into eternity with a leafy branch, they marched steadily across.

When I met Russell afterwards, I asked him what on earth took him over such a place, and how he expected it ever to become a road across the island. Then I found that he had not crossed it; he had cut his line up to the bad spot, then, retracing his steps some miles, had found a good road down a side spur, which we had missed, and had ascended again further on. There are many sorts of funk: some men fear sickness, some fighting, some spooks, some drowning, and some cats; every man has his own particular abhorrence; but the worst kind of helpless fear is the sort I suffer from—fear of a height.

At last our journey ended. One afternoon we marched into a large clearing, in which stood a log hut, surrounded by a ring of natives camped at a safe distance from Russell’s men in the hut, but closely investing it; it was the last post Russell had placed, before disappearing across to the Yodda. We soon swept away the surrounding natives, who had been patiently waiting until the men in the hut were starved into the open. As the rattle of our rifle fire died away, in marched Russell from the other side, covered on his rear by a wide-flung patrol of mine. Russell had been having a very rough time: he had by degrees broken up his force, leaving them in log huts to guard his line of communication, in order to ensure the safety of his sick and returning carriers; eventually he and Macdonald (head gaoler) had penetrated into the Yodda, so weak in force that they were easily driven out by hostile natives. When I came up, he was falling back upon a weak camp surrounded by hordes of savages; his stores were exhausted, and most of his ammunition spent. Replenished with fresh police, stores and ammunition, I left him, taking with me all the sick and exhausted carriers and worn-out police back to Port Moresby. Russell remained for a week, to complete some survey work. I took my sick by easy stages, and at the Laloki camped for three days; spending the time in shooting game of all sorts, and gorging my charges on meat, until they were a happy and contented lot of men.

A lagoon at the Laloki, which simply teemed with duck, was also inhabited by an enormous alligator, which had recently seized a Government horse by the nose, while drinking, and dragged it off. The Government offered a reward of five pounds for the destruction of the reptile. Whilst I was camped there, the lagoon happened to be very low: Lario was engaged stalking a flock of ducks, when he came suddenly upon the alligator; it opened its mouth, and he promptly emptied both barrels of his gun down its throat, whereupon it rushed into the lagoon. Lario yelled his discovery to the camp, and police, carriers and I rushed down; we could locate the beast on the bottom in three or four feet of water and about thirty feet distant from the bank, by the bubbles and discoloration caused by the reptile’s uneasy movements. “Oh, for some dynamite!” I sighed; but dynamite there was none. The police, however, and a large number of carriers, rose to the occasion: cutting poles about nine feet long, they sharpened them at the end, waded out and formed a semicircle on the far side of the alligator. Then cautiously walking up to the bubbles, half a dozen men struck suddenly and savagely at the spot; the immediate response was the appearance of a head and pair of snapping jaws. I promptly sent a Snider bullet through the head, and it disappeared again, while the men crowded together watching keenly the track of the bubbles. Once more they stirred up the beast, whilst I shot him again; half a dozen Snider bullets I must have put into various parts of its anatomy before it apparently gave up the ghost and remained quiescent under the stabs of the police. Then a man stood on the carcase, whilst others went to cut vines with which to haul it ashore. There still, however, was a remaining flicker of life in the beast; for the standing man gave a yell of fright and vanished under water, as the alligator rolled over on its side, dead at last.

The beast having been hauled ashore, I was surprised to find embedded in its skull, six inches of the point of a heavy spear, which had rotted, and round which the bone had grown. The carriers ate the brute: by New Guinea hunting custom, however, the carcase—or in this case the reward—belonged to the man who had inflicted the first wound, or “first spear” as it is called, no matter how many men might have taken part in the actual killing. Lario did not get the reward, though I told him to apply to the Treasury, and afterwards had a fuss with Ballantine about it, as Ballantine held that he was a Government servant and killed the alligator in the course of his duty. Stories about the toughness of an alligator’s hide are all bosh. A bullet from a common fowling piece will penetrate them anywhere; but they are wonderfully tenacious of life, and, however badly hit, usually manage to wriggle into deep water. I have never seen one killed instantly by a single shot, though doubtless the reptile would afterwards die from the effects of it.

I left that abominable punt at the head of the Brown River, never wanting to see the beast again. Russell and Macdonald, on their return journey, tried to descend the river in it, and lost all their personal effects as well as being half drowned, whereupon they abandoned the thing. Later Mr. Musgrave, who had an affection for the child of his brain, wanted it recovered for future use; but Sir George Le Hunte said, that as it had already nearly cost the lives of two of his officers and the head gaoler, he thought it was better left where it was.

Upon my return to Port Moresby and having reported myself to the Acting Administrator, Sir Francis Winter, I was told that the Government Secretary had a minute from the Governor for me; Sir George was away in Brisbane at the time. I went to Mr. Musgrave, and was handed a minute to this effect. “Certain deserting carriers from the Russell relief expedition have complained about being beaten with sticks by Mr. Monckton and his police. Mr. Monckton to report.” “Well, I’m damned!” I thought, “the whole of this expedition has been a mess and a muddle from the beginning; a scapegoat is wanted, and I’m to fill that rÔle!” Then in a fury of rage I went for Muzzy. “I told you from the beginning, sir, that the relief expedition was badly arranged; I begged you to give me twenty constabulary, forty good carriers, and to let me go my own way. Instead of which, I was compelled to carry out the most asinine arrangements, and to ‘induce’ a lot of disgusted and worn-out carriers to do work for which they were utterly unfitted. Hold your inquiry. I myself never hit a carrier; and the police certainly did not hit the beggars with sticks when they tried to bolt, they used steel cleaning rods.” Muzzy held up his hand. “Mr. Monckton, will you be quiet? You say you did not hit any man with a stick?” “Yes, sir,” was my answer. “And also that your police did not hit them with sticks?” “They did not,” I said, “they had no time to cut sticks; they hit the carriers, when they gave trouble, with their cleaning rods.” “I don’t want to know anything about that,” said Muzzy. “You deny absolutely that any carrier was beaten, either by yourself or your police, with sticks?” “Yes, sir, I do,” was my reply. “Call up the carriers I have brought back, and ask them whether they are not contented men.” Muzzy called up my meat-gorged men, who were then pleasantly anticipating their pay; of course they swore that I and my police were the best of good people. I then thanked my stars that on the way back I had stopped and hunted to fill the bellies of those carriers, otherwise a different tale would have been told.

Later, when I knew the complete details of Russell’s expedition and of Ballantine’s failure to relieve him, I learnt that the whole muddle was really due to Russell, having disobeyed orders, thereby throwing out all arrangements. Sir George Le Hunte had directed him to proceed to the summit of the Owen Stanley Range, but no further. Russell, however, being a keen hydrographer, had, at the imminent risk of his own and his men’s lives, descended upon the opposite side, and got into difficulties; the magnificent work he did saved him from censure or blame; but, as a matter of fact, he richly deserved the sack for attempting it. Russell afterwards showed me a letter from Sir George Le Hunte which began, “You dear disobedient person, I should be very angry with you, but instead, I can only feel pleased.” I made but one remark to Russell, and that was, “You thank your stars you are dealing with Sir George instead of Sir William MacGregor: for if you had disobeyed him, you would have had something to remember!”

I then received a note from Captain Barton asking me to take up my quarters at Government House, until the return of the Governor from Australia; he also told me that it had been decided by Council that the untouched part of the north-east coast of New Guinea was to be taken in hand, and that I was to be sent there as the first Resident Magistrate. “You will be glad,” naÏvely remarked Captain Barton, “to have settled and permanent work.”