CRUISE OF ROMANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21951, 12 May 1933, Page 13

CRUISE OF ROMANCE

INTRIGUING NEW GUINEA Alluringly lovely in isolation, daughter of ffione of tropical sunshine and fertility, Papua is still primeval, still mystical, and romantic. Her weirdness, beauty, and strangeness weave enchanment, which haunts memory like the refrain of a native love song. The prelude to Pupua,—that entrancing voyage inside the Great Barrier Keof and through the Whitsunday Passage in daylight,—is in harmony with the spirit of the colourful reality ahead. Distant surf breaking on coral ramparts, gem-like islets, stately palms and spreading verdure on North Queensland shores, deep oily ripples spreading outward from the moving bow, soft phosphorescence on moonlit waters, an.l the clarity of sparkling stars, —these prepare the mind for Papua. Port Moresby, capital of Papua, is the objective of the P. and 0. pleasure cruises in June and August, picked months for sightseeing. Papua is Australia's southern portion of the great island of New Guinea, and its capital is on a narrow ridge between two hills, with picturesque jungle in the background and native villages a few miles away. This pleasant British centre is the attractive doorway through which the tourist can be-

hold in comfort and security the novel life across the threshold. A thrilling spectacle, comparable only to the fanatic abandon of the Dragon Beat festival in South China, has been staged, for the benefit of visitors by the excursion steamers. It is savagely alive and unique. Packed into a score of narrow, flimsy canoes, native warriors await the starting signal. Then simultaneously the broad paddles throw high the spray. Wild barbaric yells resound. In mad exaltation the paddlers bend, dip, recover. Foam-splashed, sweat-streaked, frenzied, the Papuans hurl their frail craft through the water. So perfect is the rhythm and so incessant the lash of blades on the surface that a white churning streak seems suspended from bow .to stern. Wilder grow the yells, faster the rhythm, swifter the onrush. Thus ten thousand years back the coastal savages of New Guinea fell upon their prey in one paralysing inescapable attack. Incredible ferocity, superhuman effort, centuries of timing and skill are concentrated in that last thirty yards before the sensational race is over. The tension snaps as the paddles stop. Papua slips back into placidity, and the white onlookers on the high, broad decks draw long full breaths of relief from stress.

Another aspect of New Guinea life is shown by the short motor trips to the villages of Hanuabada. Peri, and Vabukori. The effects of tribal warfare in the days before the coming of the white peace are revealed by the curious manner in which the coastal natives have built their villages. Their huts of thatched sago

palm stand on piles in the water, so that when the bush natives sent their headhunters in search of prey the hut dwellers could drop quickly into their canoes, always moored to the piles, and escape. Similarly the bush natives sought protection against cannibal raiders from the coast by building their homes in the tops of trees. When the alarm was given and the invaders appeared, the tree dwellers simply hauled up the vine ladders which served as stairways and from positions of comparative safety hurled down defiance and fstones.

To-day Papua is peaceful and secure, except in districts in that far-flung territory where British rule is still a seminebulous thing. As the white visitors near a village swarms of dusky piccaninnies race out to act as unofficial escorts. Those happy youngsters are unfailing objects of interest and charm. Their good-tempered fathers cultivate little plots, engage in fishing, and make a crude hind of pottery'. In between the villages one enjoys the luxurious profusion of the New Guinea jungle, the variety and superb colourings of the tropical flowers, the richly-hued birds and butterflies. Sorcery, witchcraft, and superstitition seem, indeed, afar oft", yet the grim " tabu " is not yet inoperative, the old ceremonies and dances persist, and under the veneer of a few decades there is still the primitive savage.

How closely past and present can mingle may be seen in the native dance given in honour of the pleasure cruise spectators. Two or three hundred

natives, drawn from several tribes, with differing manners, customs, and garb, are assembled. They are grotesquely painted and wear fantastic masks, with high, waving headdresses composed of the plumes of the bird of paradise or of the Gouri pigeon. The masks consist pf coloured beaten bark which has been stretched on cane frames. Weeks, even months, may go to the making of one of these awesome coverings which formerly played such a. vital .part in the native life. Only those who. have seen a New Guinea dance can properly visualise the weird spectacle as the dancers slip back mentally and physically _ into vanished ages, each man living again the ceremony practised by countless ancestors. While the canoe race exhausted interest in a single great effort, the dance is immeasurably more intricate, more suggestive of New Guinea rites and customs, and more impressed on memory. In the very antiquity of the evolutions and motions there is a rough dignity, and in the whole-hearted enthusiasm of the participants there is a suggestion of wilder days and of deeply-stained aftermaths. Filled to the brim with variety and interest, the day in Port Moresby, and beyond, represents an incursion into an unknown era and a contact with racial survivals so old that beside them our own' civilisation seems a tiny shrub which is shooting up at the foot of a tree giant of this island of mystery. The P. and 0. steamer Maloja. 21,000 tons, will leave Sydney on June 16, and the Strathaird, 22,500 tons, on August 26.