ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINEA.

Press, Volume XXVII, Issue 3644, 14 March 1877, Page 3 (Supplement)

ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINEA.

We extract from the Melbourne Argus the

following amusing review of a work of

fiction recently published in London. The editor, and we presume author, chooses to style himself the Bey Henry Crocker, of Sc Ann's Parsonage, New Zealand, but we believe if he had given his real name and address they would have beea much more familiar to the people of Canterbury. The book seems to have reached Melbourne, but is not yet to be procured in Christehurch. We believe, however, that copies will soon be on sale by our local booksellers : —

" Captain Lawson'e " extravagant fistion, and the interest which has been awakened in New Guinea by recent projects fo: its colonisation, have combined to direct attention to it as a suitable locale for the exercise of the romancer's art. And ac, according to the hackneyed remark of Tacitus, ' everything unknown is magnified,' the writer of a story like the present does not feel himself precluded from peopling the unexplored interior of New Guinea with boa constrictors 51ft in length, capable not only of swallowing ' vast crocodiles,' but of digesting and assimilating their scaly integuments. As to the auriferous resources of the isiand it is to be hoped that no adventurous diggers will get hold of the narrative of Louis Tregance, and read it au piedde Iα lettre. or we shall have a rush to the land of the Orangwoks, accompanied by speculative shipments of stores and hardware to the city of Eootar.

" Adventures in New Guinea" may be described as a book constructed on the model of Jules Verne's popular works ; although the vraisemblance of its details is less conspicuous and consistent than that which the French writer coatrives to maintain. The narrative purports to be issued under the sponsorship of tha Bey HenryCrocker, of St Ann's Parsonage, Wiremai, New Zealand ; a place which may be looked for in the same atlas Bβ that which contains the city of Lagado. The hero of the story ie a Frenchman, who runs away to sea when a boy, visits Liverpool, is struck down by a fever, learns the English language, becomes a Freemason, is converted to Protestantism, and sets flail for Anstralia in company with an old playfellow. After various adventures In Victoria, they resolve to make a trading voyage to New Guinea. Unfortunately, the vessel was wrecked on the coast of that island, but Lonjs Tregance and four of the crew escaped with thejr lives, only to fall into the hands of a tribe of cannibals, who worship the sun and have a depraved taste for baked mariners, His companions were cooked and eaten with no other sauce apparently than hunger, but marvellous to relate, the worthy priest who superintended the cutting up and cookery of the meat, gave Louis the grip of an 'entered apprentice. . This was returned with hearty good will— followed, perhaps, by 'the sign of distress , j

—and the delighted sailor was liberated. Not unnaturally he struck up a friendship with his masonic emancipator, who had three wives, and suffered a good deal from the sacred thirst of gold. The reverend gentleman having told his young friend that there were some wonderful diggings in the country of the Orangwoks, on the other side of the Tanna Vorkoo Ranges, Louis, who had rocked a cradle at Ballarat and else where, prevailed upon his clerical preserver to forsake the baking of bodies and the caring of souls, and to accompany him on a gold seeking expedition. This the priest agreed to, and they set; oat for Kootar, the capital of the anriferoue region, accordingly. On their way they fell in with a detachment of cavalry, in the service of Hotarwokoo, the. monarch of that realm. "They were mounted," cays the writer, ''on little ponies, striped with yellow and white, which moved with great speed. Their riders were clothed in a long, loose-fitting robe, reaching below the knee. This was the. common dress of the country. They were armed with swords, spears, and bows and arrows. Some of them carried shields of pure gold,.and others had a breastplate of gold bars. They had a warlike look, although they were of small stature. We were seized before we had time to offer resistance, even had we thought of doing so, and bound with a well made rope of bark and gold thread.' The two prisoners were conveyed to the capital, on entering which every one became silent or spoke pnly in whispers. This is the custom of the place, for as yet its inhabitants are unacquainted with Legislative Assemblies, stamp oratory, street organs, and the cognate blessings of civilisation. The King of Kootar livee in a sevenstory palace, the courtyard of which is paved with slabs of gold and marble. Two thrones of pare gold occupy a dais, which is surrounded by brilliant mirrors; and the precious Beats of royalty are defended : by a couple of immense tigers, beautifully striped, and secured from devouring the courtiers 'by means of wellwrought ropes, twisted with gold wire.' But 1 the Orangwoke, though highly advanced in some respects, are terribly backward io I others. For example, every person presented at Court grovels in the presence of royalty. He ie described as • falling upon his stom&eh, and drawing himself along in this position until ha is opposite the king's throne. . Such a degradation is fortunately unknown in Europe, and the fact helps to chow that, as Tennyson says, 'the grey barbarian is lower than the Christian child.' The monarchy of Kootar is elective, and the sovereign is chosen from one of the principal families, only he must not be more that four foot high. The Orangwoks are of opinion that subjects, when providing themselvee with a ruler, * Want but little here below, Nor want that little long.' Placed in the house of a chief named Kayhar, Louie Treganee teaebes his daughter, Lamlam, Bnglieh and drawing, and ends by falling in lo»e with her. Bat as he represents himself to be an experienced miser, he i« sent by the King to the Watara district, where all the gold comes from, a region sur; rounded wtji glaciers, volcanoes, gigantic boa-constrictors, and eyarything that can make life agreeable. Here they have a very ingenious method of disposing of their criminals; and it was ascertained to be quite efficacious in putting a stop to robberies of the gold escort. Travelling through a wood ■with a Papuan named Lanna, Treganee found his nose aseailed by an odour almost as bad as anything- that can be emelt upon the Yarra below the Falls. "Before I could obtain any answer to my eager questions," j he observes, " my companion stopped, and pointing to a tall die, showed mc the corruptiEg bodies of five men. They were enfolded by the coils of a huge stfake which was wound around them very elaborately. The snake, of the boa conetriptor kind, was about seventeen feet in length. Of coarse (?) it was dead, and had been used as the instrument of death to the unfortusate men." Loving in life, in death they were not divided. And here we may parectheticaljy indulge in a little remark expressive of oar admiration for that childlike faith which ir the beautiful characterie* tic of lone religion! sewipapen. She

Nonconfnrvmt of the 8 h of November, in reviewing this book, placidly remarks, ' In spite of much that seems improbable enough in the narrative, we are bound to accept it as genuine !" Bweet, confiding soul! At page 119 Louis Tregance sees a boa constrictor 60ft long: and at page U5 he describes an animated fight between one of these reptiles and a huge crocodile. The boa, having got the better of the saurian, swallowed him. tail and all; after wtich •he coiled himself up to sleep, , which must have beea rather a difficult operation with the unelastic monster inside of him ; and then Lonie and his companions ' killed the great brute, and cut off its wrinkled head'—an incident which the Nonconformist is ' bound to accept as genuine.' At page 168 we read of ' tribes of women who live entirely by themselves, and kill any man who falls into their hands except at certain seasons of the year ;' and on the next page we hear of a tribe of men with tails, and these are so long that when they sit down they have to make holes in the ground to coil them up in.' "We do not propose to follow Louis Tregance's adventures to their conclueioD, as that would be unfair to the author, by forestalling the interest which the reader may be expected to feel in his narrative. Enough to say that the book is full of romantic incident and exciting situation?, and that it is preferable, on the whole, to •Captain Lawson's' book, because ' Louis Tregance , has a mnch more lively imagine- i tion than the author of that work. Bor must we omit to mention that the ' Adven- j tur<»B in New Guinea' is from the pen of a colonial writer, from whom we have little doubt his publishers will not be displeased to receive a second story in the same vein, eveu if the scene of it should be laid in the same island."

• " Adventures in New Guinea." Edited by he Rev H. Crocker. London : Sampson, Low, nd Co.