Evening star., 1923-08-12

the village by night surprise, otherwise
the people would have taken one of
two courses: either bolted into the bush
OF the rough mountains or resisted ar
rest. At Boianai they did bolt, having
got tidings Of the coming of the Siai,
but here was able to bring a peaceful
method to bear that resulted in the
surrender of the guilty men. The Boi-
anal natives have a very well designed
scheme of irrigation and go in for a
most intensive system of cultivation of
their somewhat limited area OF rich fiat
land. A portion of the irrigation
scheme consisted OF a wooden aqueduct.
carrying water at high level over a
small river. Their main crops were
OF taro. vegetable requiring a large
amount of moisture In the soil.
Finding my birds at Boianai had
flown. I seized the aqueduct and di-
verted the water from their gardens;
then 1 told the people that when they
surrendered the men I wanted their
gardens should again have water, but
until then, none. / thereupon sat down
In the Siai and awaited Developments,
leaving most OF my men camped at the
aqueduct under Warapas. Upon the
evening OF the second day / took my
gun and went off on shore to shoot
pigeons: Poruma, Stone and Giorgi be-
ing at the time asleep In the forecastle.
AS the dinghy returned alongside the
Siai, pulled by the cook and q village
constable, they ciumsily contrived TO
hump her violently: the row woke up
Sione. who, finding out that had gone
off alma prorrSatIu Sant (sia~,t
ruma after me-a very fortunate thing
for me as 1t proved. I, meanwhile, had
wandered down a path to seek pigeons,
Poruma and Giorgi. after some little
time. discovered the track i was on and
followed. AS peered into a tree 1 sur
denly heard yell and a crashing blow
behind me. Turning round I saw Po-
Fuma and Giorgi astride a fallen man.
iNIH1LE I had been stalking pig
w cons, they had discovered him
stalking NE, armed with a horrible
looking spear; whereupon they had
stalked him. and cracked him on the
skull just as he poised his spear TO
launch 1t into my back. After Po-
ruma and Giorgi had handcuffed the
| man, and I had examined his broken
! head and reproached Giorgi for crack
| ing the stock of a good rifle, Poruma
| remarked. TT was a little hard that
we could not have a few minutes
sleep without some foolishness being
| done"
Poruma then asked the prisoner
why he had tried to spear me, to
which he replied that he had just been
examining his garden and was annoyed
at finding that the leaves of his taro
were beginning to wilt. from lack of
| water. While so engaged. he had
been seen by the watching police,
/ who had chased him over the rough
river bed for a long distance. Then.
while lurking in the scrub, he had
caught sight of me and thought that
the opportunity was too good to lose.
The following day 7 again looked at
the gardens. and made up my mind
that if the people did not soon sur
render the men ! wanted l should
be obliged to turn on the water, for
the simple reason that I did not feel
justified in destroying their whole
food supply. Fortunately, the people
did not know I was weakening, as
that very night they sent message
to me that all the offenders-except
one-were coming in, and that they
| would catch him as soon as they
could. OF course, the missing man
was one of the most important of the
lot Sure enough the men were
brought in that night and a request
made that they should be allowed to
turn on the water. "Cerainly," 1 re-
piled, 80 soon as I have the missing
man."
An hour later he was brought in,
and they got their water.
Copyright. 1921
The next article of This unusual
series, "EIuding Death In New Guinea a
Wilas." will appear next week.