IN THE CANNIBAL COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 48, 25 February 1910, Page 5

IN THE CANNIBAL COUNTRY.

JOTTRNEY ACROSS MALAITA. MISSIONARY'S ESCAPE. SYDNEY, February 2-1. Dr. Deck, a missionary, in a letter to a friend gives some interesting details of hfs recent pioneer journey across the Island of Malaita, in the Solomon Group. ! Dr. Deck described the island as one . vast forest, 25 miles across, the jungles j swarming with naked, desperate, trea- ■ cherous people, who kill and are killed, I and feast from human flesh. From a bag slung over his neck many a warrior hangs a fragment of human flesh, a bone, finger, or tuft of hair as a talisman or trophy of some dark murder. Three times previously he tried to cross the island, but the guides failed owing to reports of murder along the trail. Finally, accompanied by four guides, he succeeded. For the first few miles the natives were friendly. Then he \ entered on the territory of natives ' against whom he was repeatedly warned. | The travelling through dense bush, through swamps and up and down mountains, was very difficult and laborious. Frequently they saw armed natives watching them. In one place swarms of brown, naked men, armed with bows and spears and muskets, surrounded the party. This demonstration came to nothing, and the visitors and the hillmen were soon shaking hands. Dr. Eeck was given a sttiall house to stay In, but wa« not , admitted to the men's living room, the ! rafters inside of which were lined with skulls of generations past. Kain added greatly to their troubles in travelling. They had to make their ] way through swollen watercourses and , slide down the side of hills. Their food i was finished before they reached the ocean. Afterwards the doctor heard tliat a party of natives was organised to cut him off and so earn the pigs and blood I money offered for a white man's head. This party lay waiting ready to kill, but, as the doctor put it, "without knowing i we took a different track. God led us the way. We knew not, neither did they, and thej' returned home empty-handed." One native frankly confessed to trying to shoot the doctor, but would not, something holding him back.