FROM INLAND PAPUA.

Northern Advocate, 6 May 1914, Page 9

FROM INLAND PAPUA.

To the average traveller, Port Moresby represents Papua; but to the woman who has travelled by river into the heart of Central China, Port Moresby is no more the real Papua than Sydney or Melbourne is the real Australia to the ordinary Australian. And such a woman is Mrs Greenland, who has just come from Papua, where her husband is Magistrate jn the Mambare district. A slim, little slip of a woman she is, with a clear, bright colour, that looks as if she had just arrived from her native land — England— instead of having been for months in one of the worst parts of New Guinea, parts where no man escapes fever for more than a month or so.

"I am a freak, my friends tell me," laughed Mrs Greenland, "not to have had fiever, but I never had a sign of it. They call our district the 'white man's grave,' and, when I reutrned to Pert Moresby, my friends told me that

they had never expected to see me alive again. Of course, I am very strong, and I not only escaped fever, but I thoroughly enjoyed my life there. I like the wildness and the freedom from the worries of civilisation, and, though there were no other white people in our district, I never felt lonely. I used to go on the patrol with my husband, and it was a strangely fascinating experience. Paipua is like a comb, up and, down, and we used to climb up one mountain only to go straight down a gully and up another mountain. I had done a lot of mountaineering in Switzerland,hut it is very different from mountaineering in Papua, the climate is so different; the natives who live on the hills think nothing of it; in fact, they soon grow tired if they go to the plains, but the boys from the plains cannot stand the hills, and soon give in. Of course they have not the same object in the climb as we white people have, and they simply give in. We had to walk-"--there was no other- way —for the whites are never carried by the blacks in Papua, as they are in India and Africa; but, in spite of the roughness and steepness I used to enjoy the patrol. . We used to travel in a party, native-police,. and boys, and in many placed they would have to cut a path through the thick bush.

"But with all its wildness, and in spite of its. distance —it is four days by. boat from Port Moresby to Mambare River, and then three days' jomrney in a whale boat—l much preferred it to Port Moresby. If one has to live amongst savage races, it is better to have' them unspoiled. In" Port Moresby .they are cheeky and spioiled by the notice.of travellers; but in our •own district, they had suffered very little from' their knowledge of white men. They have naturally .very pretty manners, and quijte a gift of "saying what they think will please 3'bu; and they become very attached to you, and are very faithful aa a rule, when, they like you.

"But to keep their affection end respect you must rule. They don't .understand conciliatory measures, or' too much considerations they; think it means softness and inefficiency. They have a tremendous' respects for the Government and the Government officers, because they know that if they do anything wrong they will be punished by the Government. . If an officer is too lenient with them they , say: l 'He not proper Government officer; Jb'e other sort'; and they have a supreme contempt for 'the other sort.' All the time I was there I never had a thing .stolen, though I never locked up drawers or cupboards. They knew < that if they stole they would be imprisoned, and so they were honest.- On the other hand, at the mission stations, where missionaries treat them, with..softness and kindness they' very often: steal and thieve. I do not mean to say that Government officials are ever cruel to them, they are not; but; they rule with firmness, and the na-< ( tives recognise them as rulers. •

"We had a cookie boy who was really quite a rich man in his own vil-r lage, but he left his village and his two wives in order to come and live with us, because he was so attached to us. He was with my husband before I went out, and had been welltrained in the kitchen; and I must say that never in my life have I seen such cleanliness as in that cookie boy —he would be an example to many a white cook. H

"What did we have to cook? — Rows and rows and rows of tinned meat, which was renewed every two months. I never want to see tinned meat again. Of course, we had fruit, too, the delicious native fruits—gran-

dillas, paw-paws, bananas, and pineapples—which grew all round. And We grew some beans and tomatoes, and the natives in the hills used to send us sweet potatoes. Then we had a few hens, which occasionally—but very occasionally—laid a few eggs, which we regarded as luxuries. We also had plenty of tinned milk h.nd unlimited tea. How we drank tea, and how we have longed for iced drinks! But, in spite of the tinned foods, housekeeping is very pleasant and-easy in Papua, compared to Sydney, for instance".

"The natives make fairly good servants. If you take some care in showing them how, they can learn to do things quite well. But it is an extraordinary thing how they forget. They may have been doing a thing, such as washing cups, quite well for months. Then suddenly they absolutely forget how to do it. They call it going ."kava-kava" —though the real "kava-kava" is when they become demented, and run amok. When my cookie-boy was stupid and did things wrong I said, 'You are "kavakava," just as you say, "you have no sense," and he knew I was rather annonoyed with him; but when I said, "You are all same as bomurra (the pig)," he knew I was really angry, and he would be very contrite.

"I only had boys as a rule; the women servants arc-too much bother and responsibility. But they seem a happy lot as a rule, these women, in spite of the fact that they do most of the work; occasionally a woman would come with the complaint that her husband had cut open her head, or something of the sort, but as a rule the men treat them w t ell enough, and, indeed, at times seem to be afraid of them. For the Papuan women have the eternal feminine weapon—the tongue—and when a wife begins to nag it is no uncommon thing for the husband to take his bow and arrows and go off into the bush for a week, until she has stopped; "But," said "Mrs Greenland, "although I thoroughly enjoyed my life in Papua, it is nice to be back in civilisation again; and it is good to be away from the awful heat and the fear of fever, and we are gong to the Blue Mountains; in search of cool and which I can tell you one needs after a year in the fever belt of Papua."