The Guest of a Cannibal King.
By J. E. Muddock, F.R.G.S.
(A Personal Experience in the South Seas.)
HEN it was announced some years ago that the Germans had annexed the large group of islands lying to the north and west of the Solomon Group, and known as the New Britain Group, in the South Pacific, I was enabled to give, through the columns of The Daily News, a number of particulars of New Britain and New Ireland, derived from personal experience. At the time some controversy arose as to whether the natives were or were not cannibals. That they were cannibals there is not the shadow of a doubt; but what they are now, since hey became subjects of the German Fatherland, I know not.
It did not fall to my lot, unhappily, to be ble to make any exploratory examination of the islands, but I had an experience on the largest of the group—that is, New Britain—which was perhaps sufficiently interesting and exciting to warrant its being narrated in detail.
If the reader will take a glance at a map of the Pacific Ocean, he can hardly fail to be astonished at the immense number of islands, large and small, that stud that glorious home of the sun, while due north of Australia, and separated by Torres Strait, is New Guinea, which is practically unexplored. To the eastward of this immense island lies the group collectively known as the Solomon Islands, the southern section of which was first discovered by the Spanish navigator, Mendana, in 1567. To the north and west of these, and much nearer to the coast of New Guinea, are situated the two magnificent islands known as New Ireland and New Britain. These were discovered and named by Captain Cook, and ought now to have been in possession of Great Britain. They are situated within ten degrees south of the equator, and are amongst the most beautiful islands of that island-studded sea. The two islands form a roughly shaped horseshoe, the inside of the shoe facing the north-west. The northern end of New Britain is separated by a very narrow passage, known as St. George's Channel, from the southern end of New Ireland. Lying off the north-western extremity of New Ireland, and separated from it by only a few miles of sea, is a small upheaval covered with dense vegetation, and known as New Hanover. About two hundred miles from this, almost in a direct line, west and by north, is Admiralty Island, which is within two hundred miles of the equator. New Britain is the most extensive of the cluster, and is probably little short of three hundred miles in length, with a maximum breadth of about forty miles. Both it and its sister island are of volcanic origin, and there are still active craters in both of them. Like most tropical islands, and more particularly those of the Southern Pacific, they are marvellously fertile, and clothed with dense and luxuriant jungle. The coast lines are exceedingly bold and rocky, deeply indented with bays and inlets, and protected by the inevitable outer barrier of coral reefs. The climate is intensely hot, almost insupportably so at times by white people. Earthquakes are very common, and cyclones of terrific force frequently sweep over the country. The natives are probably allied to the Papuans. They have very dark brown skins, black woolly hair; but amongst them are to be found men and women with wavy and occasionally straight hair, and this is probably due to Polynesian blood. They are—or were—fierce and savage, and great head hunters. Being divided into tribes scattered over the islands, tribal wars were incessant. The flora and fauna were, at the time of my visit, hardly known to Europeans; but there are some most beautiful fruits and flowers; while ferocious animals abound, together with noxious insects and deadly snakes.
Many years ago I was cruising amongst these glorious islands in a trading vessel. It was in the very hottest season of the year, and for some weeks we had alternated between dead calms, when air and sea seemed to be aflame with heat, and terrific hurricanes that blew themselves out in an hour or two, but necessitated our stripping every rag of canvas from the ship (an ill-found, patched-up barque), in order that we might not lose our sails, of which we only had one suit, and that a very old one; while our stock of new canvas consisted of
