ISLAND MURDERS AVENGED.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 66, 16 September 1908, Page 8

ISLAND MURDERS AVENGED.

After a cruise extending over a period of five months among the islands of the South Seas, H.M.S. Cambrian returned to Sydney on the 7th inst. The New Hebrides, Tonga, Solomon, and Banks Groups were i visited, and calls were also made at Suva in Fiji, and at Norfolk Island. Tulagi, in the Solomon Islands, was reached on August 5, and the Resident Commissioner, Mr C. M. Woodford, embarked to assist the officers in moting our punishment to the natives for recent murders of Europeans. Attention was first paid to the island of Malaita, where Captain Mackenzie lost his life in December last. A message was sent by the commander of the Cambrian to the chief of the tribe, demanding him to deliver wy the murderers, whose names were known to the Resident Commissioner, but an insolent reply came back. A punitive expedition, in charge of Lieutenant John Pearson, was landed on the island on 9th August. This was the first time in the history of the Solomons that an attempt was made to penetrate into the interior of Malaita — the most dreaded spot in the group inhabited by cannibals of the most depraved type. For 10 miles the party marched inland, the route being directed by the aid only of a compass. .Eventually a village was reached governed by Chief Induacaia, whose tribe was implicated in the murder of Captain Mackenzie. Here the ensign of the Minota was ftmnd, together with a quantity of trade looted from the' schooner. The village was burnt to the ground, and, a number of pigs shot. The plantations of the natives, however, were spared. The fleet surgeon found unmistakable evidence of cannibalism, and secured human jawbones.