GUINEA GOLD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10767, 16 May 1911, Page 6

GUINEA GOLD.

(By Beatrice Grimshaw.)

In the fading yellow sunset, stemming the death-like stream with our incongruous cargo of Christy-MinStrel-play-ing niggers, we began once more to look for a camping-ground. It seemed no easier to lind to-night than last night; true, the swamps were far Behind us, hut the trees crowded each other right to the verge of the river, and there did not seein'a spot the size, of a table where a tent/ might be .pitched. But the miners; familiar with tliiskind. of travel as. a '"drummer'' is familiar with ticket-offices"' and platforms, settled cvepythin'g-'witlx. the" artmost ease. They got out on the edge of the primeval'forest, climbed up the steep-banks to work with tomahawks, aiid Had: tlio flies for .the natives and the 1 tent, for us pitched in the middle of a neat little clearing before the light was put of the skv. That night tlie nurse, and: I'had a floor of clean earth and leaves to'our tent, and when tlie flap: was. opened after turning in a dim view of drooping boughs and pillared trunks, stretching away into the depths of the unknown forest where never a. white man's, .fopt had "trod. All round us was unexplored country; the Kukukuku alone, 'that ghostly night-wandering tribe, known and feared by all the .western tribes, but never seen in broad day, might tread tlie dense recesses of the jungle now and then; the wild boar might crash, through the. lianas, the crocodile bellow in the -creeks—other life there was none. . The next day was only the third, but we. felt, as if we had been travelling up the river for weeks, and after luncli (since the miners told us we' were Hearing the landing-place) the: nurse - kept a sharp lookout for the end of the journey. About 4 o'clock tlie Bulldog drew iiv to the left-hand side of the river.;and stopped. \Vo were. at Tiven, the landing-place for the goldfields.^ That celebrated schoolboy "howler "Le mille Roniaine etait de mille pas —"Theißoman mile was not; a mile"— came into my head as I looked. The Tiveri landing-place was not a. landingplace. There was no jetty, no stage, not even a piece of bank, cut level. There was no house, 110 visible tracK. Yon simply made a long jump from the Bulldog's gunwale on to a muddy slope as steep as a roof, scrambled up it, and saw your goods thrown out after you and conveyed on carriers' backs up to the store. And yet.alLthe food foi thousands of natives and hundreds of whites, all the material'for a field hospital, roofing iron, furniture, and. miscellaneous property of every kind, had been landed on that absurd mud-slide during a year and a-half past; Half . a mile of wet forest _ track brought us up to the store, fronting on a creek which was bridged rather ingeniously by a light raft tied to a handrope of native creepers. The store itself was a . "bird-cage" building of the type familiar in tlie Papuan bush, made of saplings and very narrow slabs set fairly close, quite transparent, unless where the inmates had nailed a little calico for privacy's sake, boasting but two rooms, one of which was the htidroom of the storekeeper and his wife; the other, the bar. At this place all the goods for the goklfiekl are landed, and stacked in rude sheds, to be conveyed later on by carriers up to the small branch store on tho field. There were several miners down here, dressed in -the universal costume of dark flannel .shirt, khaki trousers, and soft felt hat, worn by. all the diggers of Papua. They eagerly greeted their companions who had come up w' , lis, and immediately all the flannel shirts retired from the bar, while the dogsone to every man —got up fights outside the store, and the engaged laborers squatted on their haunches about the verandah, and exchanged opinions about their masters. Tents were pitched for tlie nurse and myself on the patch ot clear ground in front of - the store, and we enjoyed the luxury of a change and a wash, before walking round to see what sort of a place we had got to. It was a mere handful snatched out of the bush; a wall of dark tall forest surrounded the little clearing on every hand. There was a bit of garden, a fowlyard, one store, and outhouses —110 more. . _ , We did not sleep early that night; there was nothing uproarious about the behavior of the miners, but the keeper of the store had a peculiarly blatant gramaphone, and a large stock of music-hall songs; and for what seemed an interminable time Harry Lauder was made to bellow forth to the silent night the philosophy of life. If a gramaphone is more objectionable in any one place than in any other, surely a clearing in tlie remote, quiet bush, with a river running by, and the stars overhead, is that place. There have been millions of men, in the last four centuries, who have cursed the names of Gutenberg and Faust, despite the good tilings they gave for mankind. There will be millions more, during the next century or two, who will curse the name of Edison —as I did that night in the starry clearing beside the little river. Next morning carriers by the dozen were streaming all up the track to tlie field, conveying the cargo of the Bulldog piece by piece, in 40 or oOlb loads, strapped 011 their backs. The nurse and myself, guided by tlie Government medical officer belonging to the district, got away after lunch. We had prepared ourselves for a rough walk, and wore short skirts and puttees.; the latter meant to protect us against leeches and far worse evil, "scrub itch" —the scourge of the New Guinea bush. This anno 3 ing affection is caused ]>y a microscopic insect, inhabiting low scrub. It burrows under the skin, and raises small, torturing lumps, which often take weeks to disappear. Surveyors, who spend much of their time out in tlie bush," are sometimes actually lamed by this unpleasant affection. The track from Tiveri to the field is a Government road —so we were told. I had been long enough in Papua not to expect a macadamised highway fit for motor cars, but that seven miles tramp, was really, really. Well, the Government had done a good deal. They had cut down all the big trees along a strip some yards wide, and some miles long; they had bridged tlie creeks, and they had corduroyed the swamps. But the bridges were single logs, spanning creeks that were torrents half the time; sometimes they boasted a very loose swinging fingerguide of native liana on one side; sometimes" they did not. Occasionally the log had sunk to a fearsome angle; once it was partly under water. Luckily, my companion and I owned good heads, and steady feet. . . It did 110 C. require a special revelation to explain why two .men whom I met coming up to the field from' Tiveri, weeks later, carried an uncorked bottle of whisky.,, almost full, at the end of that hot, tiresome walk. A man who attempted tllia journey 111 any condition short of absolute sobriety might justly be arrested as an intending suicide. Most of the track was swamp,, and practically all the seven miles was imperfect'" "corduroy" laid endwise, which is a wicked way of' layitig it, though logs are saved, because you must bal- : ance along all the time with you toes turned out, watching for rolling" and tilting logs. We' had started rather late, and we could' not hurry over tlie corduroy; so when the afternoon thun- ; derstorm; came on (there is one" pracitcally every day at 5 o'clock) we simply had to take it as it came, only .praying that the, terrifying flashes i should not catch us in the middle-of a single-log bridge. As for the rain—well, we were as wet in five minutes as we could" be in five hours, so the worst was known at once.

Streaming water at every fold of clothing, we reached, tile last bit ofthe track, where a rise of: 300 ft has to he taken all in .one gulp, -up rough 'log steps part of the way, on semi-perpen-dicular . slides of; greasy clay , the rest. There are line views from this hit, hut the mountain mists 'blanket'"everything about the • Lakekamu in the afternoons, .and. we could; only ; white cloudy air, dripping trees, ainfd slippery root-bound track. Over the crest of the hill we dropped in the sudden way that is usual' among these '.highlands. There are! many ridges, and. this _is, one where a tall man could sit astride on the highest parti Past the doctor's little birdcage bungalow; down 7 a • nightmare stairway.of 271 great logs, laid widely apart across a 1 greasy slope 'of some 45 degrees, on into a brief niche carved out of the hill, • where another little stick house clung like a.swallow's nest —and we were there. Ten days out from Port Moresby; a hundred and ninety miles—good travelling for' Papua. With the exception of Woodlark, the Lakekamu is by far the easiest - to

reach of the Papuan goldfields. Tliis fnct giV-es some idea of the' barriers that hare been overcome by mining pioneers. And here I wilL have to pause and tell something of the past history of New Guinea goldfields.