At the time we were camped on the shore of the Agaiambu lake, I noticed growing on the bank of a stream leading into it, a D’Albertia creeper, with white blossoms instead of the usual vivid scarlet; I had never seen a white one before, and have never seen it since. The D’Albertia, whose botanical name, by the way, is Mucuna Bennetti, is quite the most marvellous and beautiful creeper in the world; but as yet all attempts to transplant it, or introduce it into cultivation, have failed. No water colour nor slickness of oils can reproduce the wonderful brilliance of scarlet colour of the ordinary variety of this plant; its blossoms simply strike one dumb with their startling beauty. Perhaps, in time to come, some Yankee millionaire may charter a special steamer and transplant a D’Albertia, as they transplant grown pine trees; but, until that day comes, the people, who do not care to seek it in its haunts, will lack the sight of the most wonderful plant in the world.

From the Barigi River, I went on to investigate complaints made by a tribe named Notu, situated at Oro Bay on the north-east coast, of attacks made upon them by an inland tribe named Dobudura. The Notu, who were a set of murdering blackguards themselves and a curse to the coast, told me that they had hitherto been on most friendly terms with the Dobudura, but that lately the latter tribe had been raiding them, and killing by torture any people they captured. “We don’t mind fighting,” said the Notu, “and we don’t mind being killed and eaten, for that is the lot of men, but we do object to having our arms ripped up and being tied to posts or trees by our own sinews, and having meat chopped off us until we die!” “I will deal with the Dobudura,” I told them, “but afterwards I am going to make you sit up and squeal; for, to my certain knowledge, you have recently killed and eaten two Mambare carriers; also, I have heard of quite a number of mysterious disappearances of people in the vicinity of your villages.” “Crocodiles,” said the Notu, “they are bad here.” “Yes,” I told them, “two-legged crocodiles. Now, what started your row with the Dobuduras?” “Sorcery,” they said. “Have you scoundrels been playing with sorcery?” I asked. “No,” they answered, and assured me that their virtue in that respect was almost beyond belief; to which I answered that I thought it was!

They then told me that the prevailing drought had badly affected the Dobudura country, and many of that people’s gardens had perished; while a sago swamp, upon which they relied in times of scarcity, had got as dry as tinder and been swept by fire. Some rain had fallen in the immediate vicinity of the Notu villages at Oro Bay and had saved the Notu gardens; whereupon the Dobudura people had ascribed their misfortunes to the work of Notu sorcerers, and set out to make things extremely unpleasant for the Notu. “Is the Dobudura tribe a numerous one?” I asked. “Yes, much more numerous than we are,” they told me. The Notu could muster about three hundred fighting men, and, therefore, I concluded that the Dobudura had probably about four or five hundred men.

At dawn I marched inland in search of the Dobudura country, accompanied by Acland and Walker, and taking with me about seventy Notu armed with spear, club, and shield, to act as scouts and guides, twenty-five constabulary and village constables, and about sixty Kaili Kaili under old Giwi. The track, after clearing the coastal swamp, ran through alternate belts of tall forest and grass, and was well worn and defined; it showed signs of the recent passage of large bodies of men. The Notu marched in front, flung out as a screen of scouts, a position they were not at all keen on occupying. We marched until about noon, when, as we neared the edge of a belt of forest we were passing through, the Notu came running back and got behind the column, saying that the Dobudura were in sight. We emerged on to a grassy plain, and sighted a village surrounded by a thick grove of cocoanut and betel-nut palms; three or four Dobudura were standing, fully armed and plumed, watching for us to emerge from the forest; they had evidently discovered our advance into their country.

They at once gave tongue to a prolonged blood-curdling war-cry “Oooogh! Aarrr!” which was taken up by a number of other men invisible to us; then came the long deep boom of the conch shells and wooden war horns; the beggars clearly meant fight. I ordered the police to kneel in line just inside the edge of the forest, and then sent the Notu into the open to yell their own war-cry, and draw the Dobudura into the open. We could now see dozens of plumed Dobudura heads bobbing up and down in the tall grass, about a mile away; but, though the Notu came tearing back several times in alarm at having discovered a Dobudura scout close to them, no further advance was made by them, though their war-cry was going on constantly. “Those fellows are waiting for reinforcements,” I said, “I’ll take them in detail”; and advanced upon the village, while the Dobudura scouts hung on our flank and rear.

Approaching close to the village, I ordered the police to rush it, which they did, only, however, just as rapidly as the Dobudura vacated it on the other side. I judged, from the number of holes in the ground made by the Dobudura sticking their spears upright in the ground while they rested, that about a hundred and fifty men had been in the village. In the centre of the village there was a platform, about four feet high, stacked with skulls, some quite fresh and with morsels of flesh adhering to them. “Ours,” said the Notu. “See that hole in the side of each skull? That is where they scrape out the fresh brains!” Every skull had a hole in exactly the same place, varying in size, but uniform in position. The village was full of pigs and fowls, which the police and carriers killed. Dobudura scouts still hung about us, but their main body had vanished. A group of four or five of them got up a tree, about five hundred yards distant, and, as we continued our march, watched us and shouted directions and information of our movements to invisible Dobudura ahead. I ordered half a dozen constabulary to fire at the men in the tree, which they did, Walker and Acland also firing; the men dropped rapidly from the tree, but none of them were hit, though the sound of rifles, heard by them for the first time, must have disturbed their nerves a little.

As we continued our march, we found that we were surrounded by a thin ring of Dobudura, who were now quite silent. They gave one a funny feeling—the feeling of being surrounded by a thin invisible net which always gave when pressed, only to close again when we relaxed our pressure. “Master, be cautious; I think we shall find a big fight,” said Barigi. “Keep close together, and your tomahawks ready,” old Giwi told his Kaili Kaili. I detached half a dozen constabulary and told them to sneak through the long grass and break the ring of Dobudura scouts. They left; and soon I heard shots. The police returned, bringing with them the spears, clubs, and shields of two men they had shot; but, hardly had they returned, when the ring reformed. We marched on once more, my flanking police constantly having slight skirmishes with small bodies of the Dobudura, but nothing like a fight taking place. The Dobudura were clearly carrying out some well-defined plan: they were not afraid of us, that was certain, or they would have bolted altogether; neither did they mean to come into open collision with us yet.

At last, still accompanied by the watching ring of men, we came to the bank of a river, upon the opposite bank of which an armed Dobudura was standing, shouting to others behind. “Get me that man alive!” I ordered. Ten police at once plunged into and across the river, and tore after him as he fled. Walker, like an idiot, imagined that he could keep up with the swift police, and went after them, before I saw what he was doing. He paid for his folly, for he got the fright of his life. He was, of course, soon easily out-distanced by the constabulary, who did not for a moment imagine that any white man would be fool enough to try and keep up with them, and suddenly he came to a place where the track divided, and could not tell which one the police had taken; he also now became conscious that the forest around him was full of Dobudura, he could hear their voices, and he did not dare to attempt to return to my party alone, for he had gone too far. Accordingly, at a venture he took one of the tracks, and luckily for him it was the right one, for in a few minutes he walked right into the returning police, who had captured a woman; she turned out to be a Notu woman, captured some time before by the Dobudura. If Walker had taken the other track, he would most certainly have been killed, as the police reported that it was held by a strong force of Dobudura. I gave him a severe lecture, telling him that work of this description was worry enough for me, without its being complicated by the escapades of congenital idiots. “I suppose next,” I said, “if you see a native climb a cocoanut tree like a monkey, you will imagine that you can do it too! If you do try, please take care and fall on your head, and then you will come to no harm.” Walker was extremely annoyed, and said that he did not believe the Dobudura would fight at all.

Village after village we entered, all being deserted at our approach. At one spot on our line of march, a very big Dobudura nearly got Sergeant Kimai, who was slightly away from his men on one flank. The man crept up, and then rushed silently at Kimai with a club; fortunately he caught sight of him, and, dropping on his knee, blew the man’s stomach in at a yard’s distance. My young devil, Toku, and some Kaili Kaili, discovered a Dobudura sneaking up, and the man fled finding that he was discovered; whereupon Toku shot him in the stern with a small pea rifle of mine he was carrying. The man clapped his hand to the place, and went off in a series of jumps, or, as Toku put it, like a kangaroo! Each village we entered had the same platform filled with skulls, some years old, others but a few days; while in some villages an additional decoration in the form of ropes hung with human jawbones was provided. The skulls were all those of people killed and eaten, and were of both sexes and all ages, from that of an infant to that of a senile old man or woman.

At last we came to a big village of two hundred houses, where two men were shot in a skirmish, and a man and a woman captured by the scouting police. The man was sullen and would not answer questions; the woman talkative, when once she found that she was not going to be killed. She told me that most of the men were away fighting the Sangara, but that swift messengers had gone for them, to tell them of our invasion. I gave the man and the woman some tobacco, and then showed them how a bullet would pass through a shield or even a cocoanut tree; then I told them to seek out their chief and tell him that it was useless his fighting me, but that I must stop him fighting the Notu people, and that he had better come and see me himself next day, offering him safe conduct. So off they went.

Platforms of skulls were at each end of this village; hundreds of skulls, and there was one heap of about thirty quite fresh ones, the adhering flesh had hardly had time to go bad. I nearly lost Private Oia here: he had leant his rifle against a tree a little distance away from the main body, and was squatting on the ground, when a Dobudura crept up and rushed him with a club; Oia sprang up towards the enemy, just as the club swung down for his head, and succeeded in catching the blow from the wooden handle on his shoulder, instead of the cutting-stone disc on his head. Oia then tore the club from the man’s grasp and dashed out his brains with it. “These Dobudura may be all right with the spear, but they are no good with the club,” said Oia to me. “Why?” asked I. “If that fool had been close enough to make a side cut at my knee instead of a down cut at my head, he would have got me,” he said; “to use the down cut against a stooping man is folly, as it is so easily avoided!” Oia, like his father, old Bushimai, was an expert in the use of a club. The old man despised a shield, considering it a useless encumbrance, and trusted to his clever manipulation of his club to ward off missiles.

Night was now closing in, with threatening rain, and then the Notu calmly told me that the Dobudura preferred to fight at night, which was quite contrary to all usual native custom; this to me was a very alarming statement, as it was also to the police. “I don’t like this at all,” I told Acland, “I have been an absolute fool. This village alone must be able to furnish quite three hundred men, and the other villages we passed through a like number at least, which makes six hundred; while there may be a dozen other villages within easy reach, for all I know. I should have camped early in the day in the forest, and built a stockade for the night. If these beggars choose to rush us in the dark, the police won’t be able to distinguish carriers from Dobudura in the tangled mess there will be; and I have not enough police to keep up a sufficiency of sentries round the camp, without the whole force being on duty all night.” Just before dark, our late prisoner walked in and told us that the men from the Sangara district had returned, and the chief proposed to pay us a visit that night. My sentries were posted at the time, but the man had got through them and right up to me, unchallenged. My police and the Notu protested strongly against our receiving visitors at night. “It’s contrary to all our customs to receive visitors at night, and there is something behind this,” they said. “Return to your chief, and tell him I will receive him in the morning,” I told the messenger, “but that any one coming near my camp to-night will be shot immediately,” and off he went.

“If there is a fight to-night, how are we to distinguish the carriers from the Dobudura?” I asked Barigi. “Let each carrier keep by him a glowing fire-stick, and seize and wave it when the fight comes,” he replied, “then we can shoot at the men without fire in their hands.” It was good advice, and I took it; and each carrier took good care that—like the wise virgins—he kept his light burning. The night wore on: we three Europeans lying on the ground with our revolvers buckled on, our rifles ready to grasp, and with our pockets uncomfortably full of cartridges; the police, that were not on duty, lay on their rifles, and each carrier kept spear or tomahawk handy. Old Giwi croaked about the folly of our camp, and exhorted the Kaili Kaili and his two sons, Makawa in my police and Toku my servant, to fight strongly. I stationed men at houses at each end and side of the village, with fire-pots full of live embers, and instructed them—in the case of an attack—at once to set fire to the dry sago-leaf roofs, in order to give us light to fire by. The nerves of the whole party were now in a state of tense expectation, and the Notu quietly bewailed their folly in coming with me. “If we are smashed up,” I told Walker and Acland, “don’t let those beggars get you alive.”

All at once I heard the voice of a village constable, in the circle of sentries, raised in anger, “What two fools are you, walking past me without fire-sticks? You know the orders!” The order had been given by me that any carrier moving about the camp was to carry his fire-stick. The men made no reply, but rushed past him from our camp into the night; whereupon he fired after them, and immediately there broke out a blaze of fire from the rifles of the sentries all round the camp. I found out later that the two men were Dobudura who, unperceived, had been right through our camp, studying the disposition of my force.

Then came the blood-curdling war-cry of the Dobudura all round us, which was answered by a yell of defiance from the Kaili Kaili, and a howl of terror from the Notu. “Fire the houses! Fall in the constabulary!” I yelled amid the din. Suddenly bang went a rifle at my side; I turned and saw Walker. Then came a yell of protest from the Kaili Kaili. “What the devil do you think you are doing?” I demanded. “Firing at the enemy!” he answered, wild with nervous excitement. “Trying to murder my Kaili Kaili!” I told him shortly. Walker calmed down and ceased firing. The houses shot up into a blaze, and lit up the village and surrounding grass for fifty yards; the constabulary and village constables rapidly formed in line, and the Kaili Kaili and Notu, who were frantically waving their fire-sticks, lay down, in order that we might fire over them. The noise died away as quickly as it had risen, and the Dobudura departed as swiftly as they had come, without pushing their attack. I was extremely puzzled, but decided that perhaps they would yet come; so the men stood as they were, in the light of the burning houses, until three in the morning, when rain fell upon us, and the Notu said we were now all right, as nothing would induce the Dobudura to fight in the rain.

It was not until long afterwards, when I was on really friendly terms with the Dobudura, that I learnt what had saved us that night. They had discovered our advance into their country, almost immediately after we had left the coast, and had decided to draw us as far as possible into their district and avoid a fight until the men from Sangara could return; then to throw every available fighting man upon my camp just before dawn. They knew a large portion of my force was comprised of Notu, whom they despised, and expected would bolt at the first attack. Their chief, who devised the scheme, had wished to visit my camp to see for himself how my force was disposed; finding he could not do this, he had sent men who had crept unperceived past the sentries. Some of the men had already returned to him with news, and he was waiting for the others, when bang went the village constable’s rifle and he fell dead, shot through the heart. The fire from the ring of sentries had also killed and wounded several others. Struck with dismay at the loss of their leader, and appalled by the flashes and sound of the rifles, they had then drawn off until dawn should come; but with the dawn came the rain, and that damped their fighting ardour. I, however, did not know this at the time, and was considerably surprised at the whole behaviour of the Dobudura. Glad was I when dawn came, for, on top of the nervous tension of the whole night, I knew that I was the person responsible for having got my party into such a dangerous position.

In the morning, there were the ever present encircling Dobudura scouts, silent and watchful. “Damn these people!” I said, “they have got upon my nerves. I am going to run away and get more police; my men can’t march and hunt them all day, and keep watch all night.” Back for the coast we marched, the Notu scouting in advance, while the rear-guard was composed of constabulary. As we passed through and vacated each village, it was at once reoccupied by many people, and a gradually increasing body of Dobudura followed on our track. At one point, as we entered the forest, I sent a man up a tree to look back, and he reported large numbers of men creeping after us in the grass. I halted my men and faced about, thinking that perhaps they had at last made up their minds to come to conclusions with me; the men in the grass halted too, and after waiting some time for an attack to develop and none coming, I sent out a flanking party to try and get round them, but their ever-watching scouts detected my manoeuvres and the Dobudura retreated.

We reached the Notu village again that night, when the old people of the village thanked me for fighting the Dobudura, and proffered gifts of necklaces made from dogs’ teeth and shells. That night we slept like stone dogs, police, Kaili Kaili, and all our party, while the Notu people kept watch. The following day I took the whaler, and with half a dozen police, Acland, and Walker, sailed for the Kumusi River; from which point I could send a message overland to Elliott, Assistant R.M. at Tamata, asking him for more police. The Kaili Kaili and the remainder of the constabulary I left encamped at Notu.

We nearly got swamped crossing the bar of the Kumusi River, a beastly shark and alligator infested spot. “Lord love a duck!” said Acland, “yesterday you nearly got us eaten by cannibals! To-day you offer us a choice between drowning, sharks, or crocodiles! If I ever hear any one saying that your guests are not provided with plenty of excitement and variety, I shall call the speaker a liar, if he’s small enough!” Oates kept a store for Whitten Brothers at the mouth of the Kumusi, from which the Yodda Gold-field was supplied per medium of the river; so here we waited for a week for the return of my messenger to Elliott. We spent our time catching big sharks and groper on a stout cotton line; we got one groper of four hundred pounds weight, and some enormous sharks, which our men ate. The fish had a curious effect upon Private Oia, for he suddenly went into high fever, and then his outer skin crackled all over and peeled off; he told me that the same thing had happened to him once before, after he had eaten a large quantity of shark.

A.W. Walsh, Assistant R.M. from Papangi Station, now put in an appearance with a trader named Clark; they had been searching for a track from Bogi on the Kumusi River to the Mangrove Isles on the coast. I at once commandeered Walsh’s services, together with his nine police, for service against the Dobudura. Walsh was an Irishman, a happy-go-lucky fellow who had gone broke farming in Australia, and had then been given a small appointment in New Guinea. His detail of police were very slack and untidy: he afterwards served under me in the Northern Division, and I had a devil of a job straightening up his men. Then arrived from Tamata ten police, sent me by Elliott, a smart, well-drilled lot; also old Bushimai appeared, with about fifty fighting men in canoes, Bushimai stating that he had heard I had sent for help to Tamata, and thought that he would bring some men to my assistance. I now had a force, I considered, sufficient to smash up any tribe in New Guinea; namely, forty-four constabulary, an extra European officer, and carriers comprised of such redoubtable fighting men as Giwi’s Kaili Kaili, and Bushimai’s Mambare—Bushimai’s men were also good night fighters.

Once more, accordingly, I returned to Oro Bay to march against the Dobudura. I found the constabulary and carriers that I had left at that point in good health and spirits, except one man who had suddenly died and been buried by the police. The Notu, however, had all bolted for the bush; and, upon asking for the reason, I found that while I was at the Kumusi they had captured, killed and eaten two runaway Kumusi carriers, and they knew that I should call them to account for it, also they were by no means keen upon putting in another night at Dobudura, the big village where we were previously attacked. The Notu and their offences, however, could wait, first I had to finish with the Dobudura; accordingly I again marched for their villages, this time full of confidence.

We found that the Dobudura had planted concealed spears on the track, as well as spear pits; but they were easily discovered by the scouting Mambare, and avoided by us. “These bush fools think we are children!” said old Bushimai, when we found the things; “perhaps before we leave they will know different!” At the first sight of the out-lying Dobudura village, we saw that it was crowded with armed plumed men, back to whom rapidly fled four of their scouts, as my force emerged from the forest. I hastily detached the Papangi and Tamata constabulary respectively as right and left flanking parties, and advanced straight upon the village with my own men; the police had orders to take as many prisoners as possible. Getting close to the village, I ordered my men to rush it, which they did; but the Dobudura, suddenly discovering that they were being attacked upon three sides at once, hastily decamped, and the police only succeeded in capturing two old men and a youth who were not swift-footed enough to escape them. All the other villages were also vacated at our approach, rows of grinning skulls alone receiving us; and again we had an encircling screen of Dobudura scouts around us, but this time they had a lively time, as now I did not care what attack was made upon my main body, and could therefore detail plenty or side patrols of police to chase or shoot them.

All that day I drove the Dobudura before us: whenever they showed any signs of forming, or putting up a serious fight, I at once flung out my flanking parties and developed so severe an attack upon their front and sides as to send them flying back to the next village; until we came to the big village of the night alarm. Here apparently their full force was assembled, and prepared to make a stand. I at once united the two flanking parties into one under Walsh, with orders to make a flank attack, whilst I made a direct one. The Dobudura had, however, lost their leader; and, as my force advanced, some fled, while others tried to put up a fight but without method or order, until several were killed, and again they fled as my force occupied the village. A good number of prisoners were taken, including several women, whose presence showed that the Dobudura had been fairly confident of holding their village against us.

Night was now fast coming; and, made cautious by first experience, I vacated the village for the forest on the bank of the Samboga River, where the Kaili Kaili and Mambare hastily felled trees and built a stockade, while half the police were dispatched in pursuit of the scattered Dobudura. Several they shot, others they captured; but that night we passed in sweet security within the walls of our stockade, though Walker was the only white member of the party not down with fever. I questioned the prisoners, who told me that the spirit of the Dobudura was broken, and that though some of that tribe wished for a pitched fight with me, others were afraid, while the death of their chief had caused divided councils in the tribe. “Why do you kill the Notu?” I asked, “that is the sole reason why I fight with you.” “We were always friendly with the Notu, until two years ago,” they replied, “but then their sorcerers began making a drought, and we had nothing except sago to eat; then the sorcerers destroyed that also, so we had to eat the Notu! The proof of the wickedness of the Notu is that they had rain while we had none.”

Here, in the early morning, I nearly lost one of my men: my party was scattered over an area of about an acre, chatting and tending their cooking-fires, when a Dobudura man crawled unperceived right amongst them and hurled a spear into the loins of a man; the man staggered forward and plucked out the spear, turning round as he did so to face his assailant, and then received a second spear clean through the forearm; this also he plucked out, and hurled it at the Dobudura completely transfixing him, just as that individual was struck by spears, tomahawks, and bullets from all directions. I made certain after I had examined my man’s wounds, that he could not possibly live; but as a matter of fact he did, and in a month was a whole man again. In this instance I did not know which to admire most, the pluck of my own man or the courage of the Dobudura who had come to what he must have known was certain death. “I wish he had been taken alive,” I remarked, as I looked at the corpse, “he would have made a fine village constable.”

Another Dobudura also lost his life in a valiant attempt to bag a man of mine: we were marching in single file through an open space covered with grass about two feet high, when suddenly a Dobudura rose out of the grass and hurled a spear at a Kaili Kaili carrier; the Kaili Kaili saw it coming and dodged, with the result that the spear merely grazed his ribs. As the man was in the act of launching a second spear, another Kaili Kaili reached him and clove his skull to the teeth.

All that day I endeavoured to bring the Dobudura to a final fight, but engage my full force they would not. Several of their scouts were shot and others taken prisoners, and in one place half a dozen constabulary and a score of Mambare were vigorously attacked by a strong force; but upon more constabulary and the Kaili Kaili running up to the sound of the firing, the Dobudura retreated. I began to feel very sorry for the Dobudura, their resistance to me was so courageous and so hopeless. The Cape Nelson constabulary, at the time, were far and away the best detachment in New Guinea, and the Mambare and Kaili Kaili with me among the very best fighters; while in Giwi and Bushimai, I had as lieutenants the two most wary, wily, and cautious fighting chiefs in the Possession. Prisoner after prisoner I released to carry messages to them, telling them that I did not wish to fight or kill any more of them, and pointing out the futility of resistance to my force; but still they went on, apparently hoping that sooner or later I should give them an opening to get home upon me; still, to my request that their chiefs should meet me in a neutral spot and discuss their killing of the Notu, they turned a deaf ear.

At last I marched for the coast again, feeling that my only hope of settling the Notu-Dobudura difficulty was by training the prisoners I had captured, and making them realize the strength of the power they were up against. As I vacated each village on our return march, it was at once reoccupied by the Dobudura, still defiant and unconquered. In the last village, I left ten constabulary concealed in the houses, who made things very hot indeed for them when they attempted to enter the apparently vacated village. Afterwards, through my prisoners, I got upon good terms with them and turned their chief into a village constable, and they furnished me with carriers for many a future expedition. I learnt much later that, after I had left their district, the Dobudura had a very rotten time; for the Sangara—against whom they had dispatched and recalled a war party at the time of my first appearance in their district—had been apparently watching events very closely, and I had hardly withdrawn before they fell upon and remorselessly slaughtered the Dobudura, before they had time to recover from the disorganization caused by me.

The wife of the old chief of the Dobudura, whom I later made village constable, was one of the finest charactered women I have ever known, either white or brown. I remember once, when returning with Tooth from the Lamington Expedition, camping in the village, worn, tired, and with a hungry lot of carriers. She received us, and explained that her husband, the chief and village constable, was away, so that she was making all arrangements for a supply of food for us. In thanking her and talking to her before I left, I asked, “Have you no children?” “I had two sons,” she replied, “but they are dead.” “How did they die?” I asked. “You killed them,” she said. “Good gracious!” I answered in surprise, “how do you make that out?” “One was killed in the night, when about to attack your camp,” she said, “the other speared one of your people and was killed in your camp.” “I am very sorry,” I said, “I wish I had your two sons marching there,” pointing to the constabulary, “for they were very brave men.” “It was not your fault, I don’t blame you,” said the old dame, “we were a foolish people; but my husband and myself wish we had our two sons again.”