EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE..

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16208, 10 May 1918, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE..

CINEMA MAN AND CANNIBALS

(from our own correspondent.)

SYDNEY, May 1

An American cinema operator, Martin Johnston, and his wife, who recently- -arrived in Sydney after spending twelve months "filming" scenes and people in the South Sea Islands, give an account of an extraordinary adventure which they had in the Island of Malikolo, in the New Hebrides. Hearing that, in a remote portion of the island, there was a tribe of untamed cannibals known among the traders as the "Big . Numbers/' . the cinema man and his wife set oft in a whaleboat, with a crew ot five friendly natives and the cameras. They "wero urgently warned against this cours© by traders and others, but they did not believe what they heard. They had wandered through parts of the Solomons of evil repute, and had met violence nowhere. They added to their party three natives of ferocious aspect, who said that tliey wore friendly with the Big Numbers tribe; and they duly landed in Big Numbers Bay. The party was suddenly and silently surrounded by a crowd of huge natives, who came out of the scrub armed with bows and arrows and rifles. The cinema man and his young wife did not like the look of things, and would have re-embarked. But the natives insisted that the white people should visit their chief, some distance inland, and so they left a couple of men in charge of tho boat and set off, with their photographic apparatus, for the central plateau. After a considerable climb, they met four bushmen. heavily armed, who jabbered excitedly for a while, and then set up a weird chant, high and shrill. From somewhere away back in the woodod hills came a faint answer. It was,getting late, and Mr Johnston decided to return to the _ boat, but his first move in that direction was barred by the savages. Their chief was coming, they said. Presently this individual, tiuge, handsome, and hairy, emerged from the forest. His appearance was not reassuring. He glared at the cinoma man, and then he saw Mrs Johnston, pretty, small, and very scared, and'his gaze never left her. The camera man produced various presents, and the chief took them without a word, still staring at the white woman. The camera man brought h't3 machines into action, and filmed the savages and the surrounding scenery, and then he oTdered his porters to pick up the cameras, and they turned again towards the shore.

Suddenly, at a word from the chief, both whites wore seized and pinioned hv natives who had crept np through the undergrowth, and they were inarched off. Then a miraclo happened. A native pave a shout, and there, looking down, tliev saw a .British war vessel, a patro] ship, entering £he bay. The natives watched for a while, and then let their prisoners go. As they hurried, down the hill, they snw the shin slowly steam round the small bay. and go out again; and the 60und of "a conch shell up above told that the natives were in pursuit. They reached their boat with the greatest difficulty, and not a moment too soon.