CHAPTER II
New Guinea natives—Port Moresby and its two native villages—Huts on poles and trees—Native superstition and its result on two tribes.
There no islands in the new world which have been the scene of greater adventures, more daring exploits, and more exciting times than those in the South Seas. From the earliest days New Guinea, New Britain, Solomon Islands, and the New Hebrides have been inhabited by a race of savages, on whom neither the efforts of missionaries nor the oaths of traders have been able to make much impression. For years the white man has tried in vain to break the spirit of these cannibals; with fire and sword whole villages have been swept away, but neither by fear nor by kindness have the natives been weaned from their worst customs, and it will take many years and much education, and perhaps the complete extinction of the old generation, before they cease to be savages. For over sixty years {14} the missionaries have been working amongst them and have taught many to read, and sent them out amongst their brethren armed with Bibles and tracts in their native languages, but all this has been of little avail; every day we hear of massacres and risings, and missionaries and traders are pounced on and murdered, and there is no accounting for these outrages which make the problem more difficult to solve. For months or even years men may live on the friendliest terms with a tribe, and then suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the natives will rise up and slay them. The whim of a chief, an angry word, a bad bargain, a superstitious fear, any of these trivialities may be the cause of a rising, and may mean the death of dozens of innocent people.
But with all their disadvantages these islands have a fascination for the traveller that no others have, and when once the taste of the free and adventurous life of the South Seas has been acquired, there is always a longing to return to them which nothing will suppress. Neither stiff joints nor old age make one iota of difference, the yearning will not be satisfied by anything short of a speedy return.