Adventures in New Guinea James Chalmers
Adventures in New Guinea James Chalmers
Adventures in New Guinea James Chalmers
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55<br />
A girl steals out from the crowd, stops, turns, eyes fixed on me;<br />
advances, stops, crosses her hands, press<strong>in</strong>g her breast. Poor th<strong>in</strong>g! not<br />
courage enough; so, lightn<strong>in</strong>g speed, back. It is evident the old ladies<br />
object to the younger ones attempt<strong>in</strong>g, and they are themselves too<br />
frightened. Another young damsel about n<strong>in</strong>e or ten years old comes out,<br />
runs, halts, walks cat-like, lest the touch of her feet on the sand<br />
should waken me from my reverie; another halt, holds her chest, lest the<br />
spirit should take its flight or the patter<strong>in</strong>g heart jump right out. I<br />
fear it was beyond the slight patter then, and had reached the stentorian<br />
thump of serious times. On; a rush; well done! She picks cloth and<br />
beads up.<br />
I have ga<strong>in</strong>ed my po<strong>in</strong>t, and will soon have the crowds--no need to wait so<br />
long to have the baits picked up now, and, after a few more such<br />
tempt<strong>in</strong>gs, it is done. I am besieged by the noisest crowd I have ever<br />
met, and am truly glad to escape on board the boat. We went to the<br />
vessel, and brought her round to the west side, where we anchored, and I<br />
aga<strong>in</strong> landed. Crowds met me on the beach, but no men. I gave my beads<br />
<strong>in</strong>discrim<strong>in</strong>ately, and soon there was a quarrel between the old ladies and<br />
young ones. The latter were ordered off, and, because they would not go,<br />
I must go. The old ladies <strong>in</strong>sisted on my gett<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to the boat, and,<br />
be<strong>in</strong>g now assisted by the few men we met <strong>in</strong> the canoe, I thought it<br />
better to comply. Long after we left the beach we heard those old<br />
cracked, crabbed voices anathematiz<strong>in</strong>g the younger members of that<br />
community. I suppose I was the first white mortal to land on that sacred<br />
shore, and I must have been to them a strange object <strong>in</strong>deed.<br />
I am fully conv<strong>in</strong>ced that this is the Woman's Land, and can easily<br />
account for its be<strong>in</strong>g called so by stray canoes from the westward.<br />
After leav<strong>in</strong>g the island, we steamed round to the westward of the small