Weird Experiences.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 9, 26 August 1908, Page 56

Weird Experiences.

THE GERMAN DOCTOR AND THE HUMAN HEADS. A GRUESOME TRADE. (By LOUIS BECKE.) When I was supercargo of the brig Palestone we were one day beating along ■the eastern shore of the great island of Tombara (New' Ireland), or, as it is now called by its German possessors, New Mecklenburg, when an accident happened to one of our hands—a smart young A.B. named Rogers. The brig was “going about" in a stiff squall when the jib-sheet block caught poor Rogers in the side, and broke three of his ribs. There were then no white men living on the east coast of New Ireland, or we should have landed him there to recover, and picked him up again on our return from the Caroline Islands; eo we decided to run down to Gerrit Denys Island, where we had heard there (was a German doctor living. He was a naturalist, and had been established there for over a year, although the natives were as savage and warlike a lot as could be found anywhere in Melanesia. We reached the island, anchored, and the naturalist came on board. He was not a professional-looking man. Here is my description of him, written 15 years ago: — He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly deserted, and looked as if they had been cut out .with a knife and fork instead of scissors-—they were so marvellously illfitting. His headgear was an ancient Panama hat, which flopped about, and almost concealed his red-bearded face, as if trying to apologise for the rest of his apparel; and the thin, gold-rimmed spectacles he wore made a curious contrast to his bare and sun-burnt feet, which were as brown as those of a native. Hi» manner, however, was that of a man perfectly at ease with himself, and his clear, steely-blue eyes showed an infinite courage and resolution. L At first he was very reluctant to have

Rogers brought on shore, but finally yielded, being at heart a good-natured man. So we I>ade Rogers good-bye, made the doctor a present of home provisions, and a few cases of beer, and told him we should be back in six weeks. When we returned Rogers came on board with the German. He was quite recovered, and he and his host were evidently on very friendly terms, and bade farewell to each other with some show of feeling. After we had left the island Rogers came aft, and told us his experiences with the German doctor. « • • • “He’s a right good sort of a chap, and treated me well, and did all he could for me, sirs; but, although he is a nice cove. I'm glad to get away from him, and lie aboard the brig again. For I can hardly believe that I haven’t had a horrid nightmare for the past six weeks.” And then he shuddered. “What was wrong with him. Rogers?” asked the skipper. “Why, he ain’t no naturalist—l mean, like them butterfly-hunting coves like you see in the East Indies. He’s a head-hunter—buys heads—fresh ’tins by preference, an’ smokes an' cures ’em himself, and sells ’em to the museums in Europe. So help me, sirs, I’ve seen him put fresh human heads into a barrel of pickle, then he takes ’em out after a week or so, and cleans out the brains, and smokes the heads, and sorter varnishes and embalms ’em like. An’ when he wasn't a-picklin’ or embalmin' or varnishin’, he was a-writing in half a dozen log books. I never knew what he was a-doin’ until one day I went into his workshop, as lie called it, and saw him bargaining with some niggers for a freshly-severed human head, which he said was not worth much because the skull was badly fractured, and would not set up well. “He was pretty mad with me at first for cornin’ in upon him and surprisin' him like, but. after a while, he took me into his confidence, and said as how he was engaged in a legitimate business, and, as the heads was dead, he was not hurtin’ ’em by preparing ’em for museums and scientific purposes. And he says to me, ‘You English peoples have got many peautiful preserved heads of the New Zealand Maoris in your museums, but, ah! Gott, there is not in England such peautiful heads as I haf mineself brebared here on this islandt. And already I haf send me away fiftyseven, and in two months I shall haf brebared sixteen more, for which I shall get me five hundred marks each.’ ” Rogers told us that when he one day expressed his horror at his host’s "business,” the German retorted that it was only 40 or 50 years since many English officials in the Australian colonies did a remarkably good business in buying smoked Maori heads and selling them to the continental museums. (This was true enough). Rogers furthermore told us that the doctor- “cured” his heads in a smoke-box, and had “a regular chemist's shop," in which were a number of large bottles of pyroligneous acid. This distinguished savant left Gerrit Deny’s Island about a year later in. a schooner bound for Singapore. She was found floating bottom up off the Admiralty Group, and a Hong Kong newspaper, in recording the event, mentioned that “the unfortunate gentleman' (Dr Ludwig S ) had with him an interesting and extremely valuable ethnographical collection.” Rogers’ horrible story had a great interest for me, for it had been my lot to see many human heads just severed from the body, and I was always fascinated by the peculiar expression of the features of those unfortunates who had been decapitated suddenly by one swift blow. “Death,” “Peace,” “Immortality,” says the closed eyelids, and the calm, quiet lips to the beholder. I little imagined that within tw'o years I should have a rather similar experience to that of Rogers, though in my case it was a very brief one. Yet it was all too long for me, and I shall always remember it as the wierdeet experience of my life.—“ Westminster Gazette.”