. The new New Guinea. der some eightor nine feet high. The place had a special interest,for it stood on the spot occupied by the dubu inwhich Chalmers was murdered by these people in1902. The Government had the dubu destroyed, butanother was put up shortly after. This was the first of the very long dubus that Ihad seen, and I looked at it with interest, knowingthat I was seeing something which had never beendescribed in print—which, indeed, was known to buta mere handful of the white race as yet. These longdubus are found only among the still unbroken anduncivilised cannibal tribes, and in mos
. The new New Guinea. der some eightor nine feet high. The place had a special interest,for it stood on the spot occupied by the dubu inwhich Chalmers was murdered by these people in1902. The Government had the dubu destroyed, butanother was put up shortly after. This was the first of the very long dubus that Ihad seen, and I looked at it with interest, knowingthat I was seeing something which had never beendescribed in print—which, indeed, was known to buta mere handful of the white race as yet. These longdubus are found only among the still unbroken anduncivilised cannibal tribes, and in most of the villagesthat possess them an unprotected stranger would bepromptly massacred. We owed our safety to the factthat a dozen police armed with rifles accompanied us,and to the memory that the people still retained ofthe massacre of 1904. They might, of course,have rushed the party and overpowered it by superi-ority of numbers, there being some hundreds of menin the town ; but our leader counted on the cowardice. IN A DUBU 231 of the Goari-Barian—and rightly so, as eventsproved. The dubu, as paced by some of the ships party,was just upon 600 feet long. Its height was uniformall through, and seemed about twelve feet. Like animmense brown centipede it wound its way backwardsthrough the swamp, supported on innumerable feetof upbearing piles, and covering an extent of groundthat seemed practically endless. It took us quite along time to walk down the dim brown tunnel of theinterior, looking at everything as we went—the walls,of close-fitted stick-work ; the roof, nipa-palm thatch ;the curious little sections into which the whole placewas divided, like the pens in a cattle-show, each penbeing the abode of a more or less happy family, asproved by the domestic goods lying about—wovenbaskets, clay pots, belts, pieces of bark cloth. In thevery centre of the building there was a sort of littlebay looking out over the swamp and the creek. Herecertain treasures, probably commun
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherphila, bookyear1911
