MASSACRE OF A BORNEO EXPLORING PARTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6572, 9 December 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

MASSACRE OF A BORNEO EXPLORING PARTY.

Fr.OM Singapore we learn that Mr. Witti (formerly uu olhcer in the Austrian army), an explorer iu the service of the British North Borneo Company, has been treacherously murdered by '" Head-huuters," who also killed several of his native attendants. .Mr. Witti hail, it seems, been making his way to the he.-.d of the .Sibueo River. This region may be considered at present quite beyond the active administration of the British North Borneo Company . Tlie Governor was uot aware that Mr. Witti intended to make so long and hazardous a journey. At the same time, Mr. Witti being an experienced traveller, a brave ma:i, and on good terms with the natives generally there was ho reason to fear that he might not go through the very heart of the country without molestation. He had made, it seems, an important trip, and \s as, it is believed, on hfs way to Kimanis. Near the head of the Sibuco River he would be ou the frontier of Dutch Borneo, and in a region where Mr. Carl Bock found the natives unusually savage and unfriendly. Witti had a partv of seventeen men. He divided them. So:u- nine or ten were told off to attend to the boats. They were navigating a river, and Witti had bought boats from the native.-. The other men remained to push on ahead in company with the explorer. The natives had shown no disposition to hostility. The local chiefs (the tribes are, no donbt, the Muruts, though one account says they arc Taudjoeing I)yacks) had hospitably entertained Witti, which is generally a guarantee of friendship. While his little party were preparing to move forward, Witti sat down to make some notes in his diary. Suddenly, from an ambush in the river, some 300 natives, armed with poisoned arrows and spears, rushed upon Witti and his men. Three of the latter fell almost immediately, Witti defended himself with his revolver and killed two of his assailants. The rest crowded upon him, however, and speared him to death. The others of his party had already run away, one o: them, who was carrying Witti's Winchester rifle, taking it off in his flight. From a hiding-place they .saw one of the attacking party decapitate Witti, while others cut oil' the lo'.v.T limbs of liia dead attendants, Hun" them with the explorer's head into a boat and made off with their bleeding trophies down stream. They also carried off Witti's papers and dispatch-box. The event lias created a sensation at Singapore and Labuan. A police party, of the Borneo Company, has bet-n, "i , is about to be, dispatched to the Been-; of the massacre, with a view to a complete investigation of the affair and the punishment of the .Muruts. The head of the Sibuco River ia on the confines of the British Xorth Borneo Company's territory, occupied by tribes of an entirely different nature to those among whom Mr. Frank Hatton, another scientific explorer, is at work in the K.i:ii Bolu. Jle ami his party, including au Australian engineer, have Wen well received. Tii-,y found the company's Dag flying at aever.il somewhat remote points, and .so far as tlie real work of the company goes it i>l moving on satisfactorily.