Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

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CHAPTER V

New Guinea Savages Give Battle

FROM AMBOYNA the expedition put back to New Guinea. A quarter-century earlier the English Captain James Cook had begun a survey of a bay that he thought extended through the island of New Guinea at its easterly end-easterly for China-bound ships. The British Admiralty had his report in their files; and now Commodore McCluer was returning to take up Cook's uncompleted survey.

The two vessels made the coast again October 25th, in latitude 20° 21' south and 132° 38' east, and next morning they were putting in to an indentation of the sea that the officers named McCluer's Inlet, after the commodore.

The wind died out, and they came to anchor, meaning to wait for a stronger wind or for the tide to turn in their favor. Amasa was officer of the deck, and, not to be wasting the good time in the anchor watch, usually a lazy watch, he was taking a bearing on the land. While at that business a small breeze sprang up from the northwest, and the commodore ordered the vessels to get under way.

On their previous visit they hadn't met with a single native savage at close quarters, which left them thinking that the tales of savage natives' doings had perhaps been overdrawn-a mistaken thought. Four or five miles from their anchorage a point of land made out, and while they were heaving in the anchor several canoes filled with natives came around the point of land.

The Panther's crew were making sail when three large canoes with about thirty men in each and eight small ones with about ten men each came into full view. The canoes approached the vessels with pieces of white cloth held high. They waved the white cloth, scooped up water from over the side, and poured it upon their heads. According to the early explorers the pouring of water and the waving of a white cloth in conjunction had always been a peace sign in the South Sea Islands.

The officers on both vessels motioned the canoes to come closer. Several canoes were then paddled to just off stern of the Panther. Men in the canoes held up birds of paradise. The two vessels were now under way, and the Panther was towing her longboat. Dr. Nickerson of the Panther hauled the longboat close up under the Panther's stern and dropped into it. Fie was for trading with the natives in the nearest canoe, but they took it as a threat and bent bows to their arrows. The doctor made signs of good will, and they lowered their bows.

The doctor held up some calico, meaning it for the men in the canoes; and from the deck of the Panther the commodore passed him down a large piece of white cloth to be divided among them. This was in accordance with the commodore's practice of always doing what he could do to increase native confidence in the good will of the English.

The men in the nearest canoe paddled to the longboat, held fast to the stern of it, and motioned the' doctor to step into their canoe. He stepped in, and they handed him on to the middle of the canoe. Half a dozen of them then clustered around him, and one took to dancing, as well as a man could dance in a canoe, and the others acted as if they too were well pleased about something.

Another canoe was paddled close up and a native in it stepped into the longboat. Amasa, who was still in charge of the deck, now began to suspect the savages of being up to no good and moved to the stern of the Panther, the better to watch the doings of the canoe men. One of the Panther's crew, a Danish sailor, had dropped into the longboat and was holding the painter that held the boat to the stern of the Panther. The native from the canoe suddenly put his arms around the Dane's neck and strove to throw him over-board.

The Dane's job was to hold on to the boat painter, and he held on to it. The savage persisted in his attack, and the Dane continued to hold on to the painter, but now he was holding it with only one hand. He was using his free hand to draw a knife from its sheath at his belt. He opened the knife with his teeth and was struggling to use it when the savage pushed him overboard. All this while Dr. Nickerson was bargaining for a bird of paradise in the canoe.

The Dane got hold of the gunnel of the longboat and tried to climb back into it. The savage pushed him back. The savages in near-by canoes now began shooting arrows into the doctor, and the savages in the canoe with him went for him with what looked like butchers' cleavers.

Mounted on the taffrail of the Panther were two cannon, and when the canoes were first sighted the commodore had ordered them to be cleaned and reloaded; but they had been poorly cleaned, and one only had been reloaded, and that one was lashed by the breech. Amasa had been slyly un-lashing the loaded cannon, hoping no savages were taking notice. But there was one taking notice, and he up with his bow and let drive, and there was an arrow sticking out of Amasa's breast when he looked down to see what had struck him.

Amasa's first thought was that the arrow might be poisoned, but there was nothing he could do about it just then except draw it out, which he did, and then made ready to fire the loaded cannon. There was grapeshot in the cannon; the nearest canoe was only twenty yards away, and he meant to give full payment for what they were doing to the doctor; but when he fired the cannon all he got was a Hash of powder in the pan, and this to his immense vexation, because there was now no concealment of his intentions toward the savages astern of the vessel.

Mess call had sounded just after Dr. Nickerson had dropped into the longboat, and most of the Panther's crew was at breakfast. At the sound of the cannon, and a loud shout from Amasa, they came arunning to the deck. They were met with a cloud of arrows. The men ducked under the bulwarks and climbed into the tops, any place to get away from the arrows. What arrows missed the flying men went into the sails and rigging.

The Panther's men who had rushed into the tops found muskets there. The men under the bulwarks had also come armed. They joined in a brisk fire on the canoes. The Endeavour had been taking notice, and she now brought her broadside of carriage guns to bear against the canoes. The broadside drove them. They went into a panic, and, instead of separating, the canoes were retreating in close formation. The two vessels continued sending grape and solid shot and musket balls into the almost solid body of canoes until they were paddled beyond range.

Dr. Nickerson's dead body was carried off by the men of the canoe that started the trouble.

The bosun who had planned to do away with Amasa earlier in the voyage took an active part in the fight, and fair-minded Amasa gave him full credit in the ship's log:

"He was as active, brave and useful as any man in the crew. He was prompt to get into service the six pound brass piece on the forecastle head."

Had wind and tide permitted, the ships would have pursued the savages and killed more savages. As it was, Amasa estimated that six or seven canoes were sunk and forty to fifty natives killed. Despite the showers of arrows that came aboard, only four of the Panther's crew were wounded, and no one mortally. Amasa accounted for that by reason of not having given the savages time to plan their attack.

In Amasa's judgment the natives were not intelligent fighters. They started artfully but slumped miserably as the fight progressed. Possibly also it was their first experience with broadsides of solid shot.

A quartermaster of the Panther got an arrow in his hip. He was at the helm of the Panther at the time. He stuck to the helm after he was hit. The fight being over and Dr. Nickerson being no longer alive, Amasa was drafted to act as surgeon. The arrow was still sticking out of the quartermaster's hip.

Those old-time sailing ship crewmen were tough hombres, and heroic surgical treatment was the order of the day aboard ships at sea. Amasa pondered this surgical problem. After due thought, he broke the arrow off, leaving a six-inch length of it still sticking in the quartermaster. The man being still strong on his feet, Amasa "pushed the arrow forward, till the points and barbs appeared on the other side of the hip, then drew it out with pliers."

On occasions Amasa would descend to humorous narration, and here was an occasion. The gun he and the bosun were handling

"was made so hot by continuous firing that she broke the breechings supplied her. The cartridges did not fit the gun, but there being no time for exactitudes we made them fit; and once, with the idea of doing extra damage, we put in an extra heavy charge. The gun blew backward into the pen of pigs on deck, broke the legs of two or three, set the whole sty squealing in a tremendous concert, quite drowning out the cries of the Malay women, a considerable number of whom were on board, and who had been shrieking in the cabin over the murder of Dr. Nickerson. A drum and fife had gone into action to hearten up the fighting men but the noise they made was quite outdone by the squeals and shrieks of the pigs and Malay women. The general racket was so ludicrous that we forebore gun duty long enough for a hearty laugh."

Amasa doesn't say when the Malay women came aboard the ship and why they were there.

The arrow that stuck into Amasa's breast was four feet long. When the battle was over he took time out to examine it. The head was of bone and set into the hollow end of the arrow, closely lashed to it with cord, and then glued. Having noted the foregoing items, Amasa waited for what poisonous effect might develop from his wound. No poison came of it, which, Amasa admits, was a great relief to him.

The town nearest to where this fight took place covered a mile square and was the largest they had yet seen in New Guinea. Amasa guessed the population of it to be twenty to thirty thousand. It was in latitude 2° 19' south, longitude 132° 36' east, which places it on the south side of the outstretched neck of "the flying bird," a name shipmasters had for the island of New Guinea because of its shape on the chart. At this place an English East India Company ship lost the entire crews of her three boats one time. She was on her eastern passage to China and put in to this very place for a fresh supply of water. Her officers had no suspicion of how savage these particular natives could be.

The second and third officers had manned two boats and were on shore for water, but not liking the behavior of the natives, they returned to the ship without the water. The chief officer spoke his mind about officers who were sent to do something and reported back without doing it. He would go himself and get water if the captain would give him the order. The captain gave the order. The second and third officers then asked to be allowed to try again. The captain agreed, and three boats were fitted out with six men and one officer to each boat.

They landed at the town, and here natives signed to them that fresh water was to be had a little distance inland. The landing party followed a group of natives to where they said the water was. The natives caught the boatmen off guard and massacred all but two of the twenty-one. One of the two was a boy, and him they treated with no great cruelty; but they tied the man's hands behind him, drove a tall stake into the ground, and lashed him so high on it that he could not stand upon his feet. They kept him in that position for all of one night.

The man and the boy were sold to trading Malays from another island, and those Malays resold them to the East Indiaman at a good profit. The savages who did the killings were very black and kinky-haired, and the Malays were brown and straight haired--not at all the same people, but they seemed to get along well together.

Commodore McCluer knew all about that massacre, and he knew that he was now at the scene of its happening; but his orders were to explore that inlet; and so, good natives or bad, the two vessels continued to explore the inlet until they arrived at where the inlet was so narrow that it left no space to tack ship safely. The evidence here was that the inlet afforded no passage through the neck of New Guinea, but the commodore held on this way to see what further.

The inlet was soon so filling up with shoals that they dared to advance only after sending boats ahead to sound. By and by they found a river emptying into the inlet, and the river was deep enough for a big ship. The two vessels made entry into the river.

Canoes approached the vessels. One of the Panther's officers stepped upon the poop deck, with a spyglass in his hand, and pointed it toward the approaching natives to see what they were at. Immediately they all dove from their canoes and put in a rapid crawl stroke for the beach. They must have taken the spyglass for a musket; and, having got the word of the fight at the mouth of the inlet, they wanted no more of the white man's war weapons. Amasa, who knew fast swimming when he saw it, admired their speed through the water.

Once the ships were well in to the river they were never out of sight of hovering natives in canoes. They acted as if biding their chance to rush the ships.

The two vessels sailed on to the head of the river. They were now short of drinking water, and something had to be done about it. They hailed a group of lurking natives and inquired, by signs, where water was to be had. They pointed out a stream so small that no vessels, only boats, could pass. Said the commodore: "We must have water!" A man of careless ways on occasions, such was Amasa's thought of Commodore McCluer, and here was an occasion. Regardless of that fight with the natives, here he was now allowing the natives to swarm aboard the ships to inform him, by signs, where water was to be had.

The ship's launch was made ready to put off for the water. The officers waited to hear which of them would be ordered to take charge of the water boat. The commodore named Old White (Lieutenant White) for the duty. White was only twenty-two years old and was called Old White because he was such a well-informed young man and possessed a face round and red like a well-nourished infant's. Amasa saw White's round face lengthen and his red face go pale when he got the order to take the ship's launch and eight men and go for water.

White set off with a chief and two other natives to guide him to the watering place. Forty canoes, full of natives, followed them up the little stream. Amasa feared he would never see Old White again.

When the water boat shoved off, the Panther's deck was crowded with natives. The commodore calmly ordered several of them seized. "I'll hold them as hostages against White's safe return," said the commodore. (Not a bad idea of the Old Man's, commented the Panther's officers.)

When White was out of sight of the ship the chief acting as his guide hauled a large kind of knife out of a basket he was carrying and drew the edge of it across his own throat. He then counted his fingers and pointed to his neck to indicate to White the number of heads he had cut off with the knife. He then rubbed it across White's throat to prove, as young Old White guessed, how handy the knife was for beheading a man.

Smilingly, and as if in the spirit of good fun, the chief continued to repeat the knife trick; and so they passed the time until they arrived at the head of the creek. The natives led White and his boat crew a third of a mile into the woods and there showed him a very small spring. The spring allowed White to fill a joint of bamboo at a time. The joint held a gallon or so; and the chief explained by signs that the white men should fill the bamboo joint and carry it to the boat at the mouth of the stream, return, refill, and so on till the casks were all filled.

White shook his head against that manner of filling his water casks. He would be a real Old White before he could get his boatload in that way. The chief being still at his knife tricks, White decided that it might be a good idea to get back to his ship-if he could. His face was still of a pale color when he got back aboardship with his boat's crew.

Amasa doubted the commodore's good judgment in sending White and his eight men on that water-boat trip. The hostages held aboard the ship could-and might-have thrown themselves into the water and taken the risk of being shot up before making the riverbank. Expert swimmers as they were, no boat could be lowered and manned and put after them in time to overhaul them. In Amasa's judgment the commodore should have put the hostages in chains and shown them so to the playful chief with the knife before he left the ship with White.

The commodore listened to White's report, approved his action, and ordered the hostages to get off the ship. They left, though in no amicable mood. Throughout that night the men on watch heard the soft paddling of canoes along the riverbank.

The two vessels were anchored almost directly under a stretch of high land. That night fires were kindling along the edge of the high land. The Panther's officer of the watch did not like the look of the fires so close overhead and ordered several rounds of musketry and two broadsides from the vessel's carriage guns to be sent in the general direction of the fires. Loud screams came from above, the fires went dead, and darkness on the high land and quiet along the river became the order of the night thereafter.