Janet Harvey Kelman

“ When he went away to make peace with new tribes he would have liked to take his wife with him, and she wished very much to go. But she was as eager as Tamate was to think of others first. She was a strong woman. She did not say much, but whenever she saw what was the right thing to do she did it. She knew that the teachers would be lonely if they both went, and that the natives might not be so willing to please them as they now were to please her husband and herself. So when Tamate went away she stayed at Suau. ”

“ He always wanted more. As long as those wild tribes of the Fly River fought and hated each other he could not rest. He wished to do more for them than to bring peace amongst them. He hoped that some of the men of those tribes at the mouth of the river, who had learned to love his Master, would go to live inland amongst the swamps and marshes, where even his Rarotongan teachers could not live. So he began to train a band of these natives, as he had trained the men of Rarotonga and Port Moresby before. ”

“ Often the natives were so angry, when they found out what had been done, that they killed other white men who did not wish to harm them.
Tamate had been in New Guinea for some years. By his kindness to the natives, he had made it more possible for strangers to trade there. But many sad things were happening. White men were cruel to natives, and natives were cruel to white men. Often both white men and dark killed people who had not hurt them, because they hated the whole race for what single men of it had done. ”

“ Naragi fought for his life. He had no weapons, but when he saw the white men fall, he leapt forward and seized another man’s club. But one man could not stand long against all those howling warriors, and soon he too lay quiet and still.
The men from the clubhouse went down in triumph to the shore to welcome the others who had stayed by the ship. Their canoes, which had shown only weapons, were now piled high with everything that could be lifted from the Nieu. The savages danced and shouted on the beach as they saw the things that had come from the white man’s ship. ”

“ All the time that Tamate was in Rarotonga he was longing to be at more dangerous work amongst those who lived to fight and kill each other, and who had no one to teach them.
His thoughts were so much with these wild tribes that he made others think of them too. Many of his students had caught his spirit, and longed, as he did, to go to the island of New Guinea, where very wild men lived and fought. Some of the teachers he had trained went before him. They knew it was dangerous, but they went with joy, [Pg 29] because they too had learned how great and glad a thing it is to live for others. ”

“ IN time the natives grew friendly again. Then Tamate thought of other places. He had not come to New Guinea to teach and help the people of one little island on its shore only.
He wished to go here and there and everywhere, that far and wide he might let men know that he and those who followed him meant peace and friendship. So he would open the way. Later he would go back to leave teachers with the chiefs whose friendship he had won. In many villages his students would have been killed at once if they had gone alone. It needed a man of strong courage, quick wit, and great heart to go first. ”

“ One morning he set sail on the Nieu, which had taken the place of the Harrier, for Cape Blackwood. The natives there, and on the large island near, were very strong and fierce. Tamate knew that he might be killed, but then he knew, too, that if he could win those wild men, he would take away the great barrier between Christ and the tribes who lived round the gulf of water into which the Fly River flowed. If these men were to stop fighting and to listen to the story of Christ, other tribes would be glad to do so too. They would be grateful to be free from the fear of these cruel warriors. ”

“ As the news of Tamate’s death came to Daru, and Motu-motu, Port Moresby and Suau, and to all the villages between them, New Guinea was stricken with sorrow. Men and women and children were sick with grief. ”

“ Chalmers and Mr. Lawes, and those like them, were not the only foreigners who came to New Guinea. Some very cruel men came. They wished to make a great deal of money, and they did not care how much they hurt other people in order to make it.
When they came to the island they bought land as Tamate did, but they did not pay for it as he had done. Sometimes they bought a large piece of ground, and gave the worth of one penny for it. The natives did not know what their land was worth, so they were willing to let it go for almost nothing. ”

“ At many other villages in New Guinea the people were told why the “Beritani war-canoes” had come to their shores, and why the Union Jack was hoisted.
At one place there was great joy because one of the war-ships brought back seventeen men who had been tempted away by traders. One was a chief, an older man than most of those who had gone. He sat gazing from the ship while a canoe came from the shore. The two men in it climbed up into the ship. Then there was a rush and a cry, and the three natives were together. [Pg 83] One of the men in the boat was the brother of the old chief. ”

“ They were the first white people who had lived amongst the natives of that wild coast. They found many tribes of natives, and each tribe was at war with the tribes around it. If two [Pg 30] chiefs had a quarrel with each other, they brought their tribes to fight it out. Then the two tribes went on paying each other back in turn, till all their villages were burned and very many of their warriors were killed. Every one was either killing, or being killed, or afraid of being killed.
The men of New Guinea were large and strong, and they liked to look handsome. ”

“ Chalmers was allowed to leave Rarotonga and to go to New Guinea.
New Guinea is an island three times as large as Great Britain. It is very rich in fruits, in ebony wood, and in other things that traders like to find. It lies near to Australia. But the savages who lived in it were so fierce, and its rocky coast was so wild, that no one had tried to trade in the south-eastern end of it. Those who knew anything about it thought that to go there meant to die.
Four years before Tamate went to New Guinea, some of his teachers had landed at one of its villages, which was called Port Moresby. ”

“ Chalmers had been winning another friend. A bold young warrior, named Bocasi, used to sit beside her on the platform of the chief’s house. He taught her to speak the Suau words, and she taught him to knit.
Many other natives were becoming friendly to the strangers. Sometimes they brought gifts of vegetables and fish, and sometimes they invited them to their feasts.
Tamate thought that he might leave his teachers in charge at Suau for a short time, and go, in the little ship that still lay in the bay, to see some other villages along the shore. ”

“ Once James heard a letter read that had come from an island on the other side of the world. It told of the sorrows and cruelties that savages have to bear. He was touched. The stories of hardship made him wish to do and dare all that the writer of the letter had dared. The stories of sorrow made him long to help. He said to himself that he too would go when he became a man. ”

“ Chalmers set sail for another village. There was a heavy sea rolling, and the little ship was driven against a point of rock. Although Aveo had tried to hide his charms from every one when he took them to Tamate, the natives had found [Pg 100] out that they were on board. Though many of these men loved Jesus Christ, they could scarcely believe that the charms had no power at all. When the ship struck the reef they said, “Tamate has Aveo’s things, and the ship is wrecked and Tamate drowned.” ”

“ The white man’s courage had awed the natives, and though the chief of Suau would have liked to get larger presents, he did not wish the strangers to be killed. The iron and beads they brought had made him wealthy. When he saw that nothing would move Tamate, he turned against the others. ”

“ Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers saw how glad [Pg 17] many of the natives were to welcome back their white friends. They saw, too, that the lives of men and women who had been savages had become noble and brave because white men who loved Jesus Christ had gone to live amongst them. This made them long greatly to reach their own home and begin work there.
The ship was ready to sail from Savage Island. All the bales of cloth and the bars of iron that were to be left there had been put on shore. The cocoanuts and other gifts that the natives had brought had been taken to the ship. ”

“ No one knew if the ship’s boat could live in it. Yet if the boat did not go to seek for help, no one might see them and then they would all be drowned. They could not tell whether it was more dangerous to go in the boat or to stay on the ship. The Harrier was over on her side again. Before the boat was sent off the sailors slid and scrambled along the sloping deck and cut the stays. Then the masts were sawn partly through on the side of the ship that was uppermost. Every one climbed to the high edge of the deck, away from all the ropes and rigging, and waited. ”

“ The Harrier crossed safely from New Guinea to the coast of Australia through stormy seas. She came to the great Barrier Reef that lies along the shore of that part of Australia. At some parts the [Pg 102] reef is more than fifty miles out to sea, at others it runs almost close to the rocks of the shore. It has openings through which ships may enter the deep water within it. The Harrier made for one of these some distance north of Cooktown and entered it safely. ”

“ No one was allowed to have these coloured marks until he had killed a man. That was why the wild men of New Guinea were so proud of tattoo marks. Each mark proved that the man who bore it had been strong and clever. ”

“ Although during his lifetime he saw many of the fierce men of the islands won for Christ, and trying to live as He wishes men to live, still the greater part of his work was to break down the [Pg 65] hatred and cruelty of the wildest tribes. So, though he had his house at Port Moresby, he was seldom there for any length of time.
On one of his voyages westward along the coast he sighted three canoes. The men in the canoes were waiting to trade with natives from the village of Namoa. When they saw Tamate they all went ashore and ate together on the beach. ”

“ They arrived safely at Sydney, in Australia, and from that town they sailed for the second part of their voyage.
The name of the island on which their first home was to be was Rarotonga. They could not go straight to it because others were on board, and the John Williams had to sail here and there amongst many islands. At one, two of her passengers must be left behind; at another, new voyagers must come on board; while here, there, and everywhere great bales of cargo must be landed. In these bales there were beads and knives, tomahawks and tobacco, and iron in bars, and rolls of cloth. ”

“ But bank notes and coins [Pg 13] would have been of no use to the islanders; so the only way to do was to take to them what they wished, and the things the John Williams carried in her hold were the things they liked best.
Round many of the islands in the Pacific lie reefs. The reefs are built of coral by tiny insects, and they rise from a great depth almost to the surface of the water. The mingling colours of the coral are very wonderful when they are seen through the liquid blue and green of the waves. ”

“ The friends had not to part at once. Tamate [Pg 87] stayed some days in the island, but he was so busy seeing people and speaking that there was not much time for story-telling. Twenty-four years before this, after the ship-wreck at Savage Island, he had landed at Samoa with nothing except the clothes he wore. He had made friends there as he always did, and now many of them, as well as others who had only heard of him before, wished to see him.
A great open-air meeting was held. Hundreds and hundreds of native men and women gathered to listen to him and to their own King Malietoa. ”

“ One big fellow he come on board, and he sit down below. Captain he tell him get up. He no get up. Captain he get sword, and he tell him if he no get up he cut head off! He get up; go ashore. I fear he no all right. Natives all look bad, and he been off trying to make row we fellow.”
Tamate knew that the “big fellow” was Bocasi. He was vexed that he and the captain had quarrelled, but he did not think there was danger. ”

“ They gathered round Tamate and said:
“Where are the other boys? You have brought joy to some homes, but others are left in sorrow.”
Mr. Chalmers wished them to go with him on the war-ship to tell Commodore Erskine of their friends. The Nelson, on which the Commodore sailed, was then at another part of the island. But the natives were far too frightened to go. One, who had a son away, was willing to give anything he had if the ships would only go quickly to bring back his boy. ”