We remained off Crab Island for three days, making a couple of excursions ashore in search of food. The mainland was barely a mile from our anchorage, but was separated from us by a huge sandbank. We could row as far as this sandbank in the dinghy, but to complete the journey it was necessary to drag the dinghy across the sand and launch it again in the lagoon on the other side. I made one trip across to this natural barrier accompanied by Mike and a couple of the boys—who thought that they had spotted a crocodile resting on one of the sand dunes, and promptly raced off in search of it. When they reached the spot, of course, there was nothing there, and the tide was rising swiftly around our ankles. The mainland and the Gahleru were both equally distant and inaccessible, and the dinghy that had brought us was a good half mile away along the sandbank which was being rapidly converted into a series of separate islands. The sun was also on the point of setting. Altogether, it was not the most comfortable of situations to be in, and I was heartily glad when we were safely on the way back to the Gahleru.
The next evening, Mike and Horace crossed the sandbank with the dinghy and went right over to the mainland. We heard occasional shots from the mangrove forest, and when we woke up next morning found that stewed ibis was on the menu. (It tasted like rather elderly duck.) Mike had also had a brush with some wild boar, but those crocodile-skin shoes were no nearer reality.
That night, while we were lying at anchor in the last faint afterglow of the sunset, a small ketch hailed us out of the gathering dusk, and sent over its dinghy to collect our deck hand and his belongings. It came from one of the many isolated mission stations scattered along the coast and among the islands of the Torres Straits, and was taking Stephen back to his people. There seemed something romantic and even moving about this rendezvous between two tiny ships off a lonely coast so many miles from any human habitation, yet no doubt our boys regarded it as casually as metropolitan man looks on catching a bus. The mission ship—which having no engine had to rely on sail alone—immediately continued on its way into the now complete darkness, through these dangerous channels and reefs, with a sublime confidence at which this landlubber could only marvel.
The influence of the missionaries, during the past hundred years, on the natives in this whole area has been enormous and would provide a fascinating study for the sociologist or anthropologist. In so far as they have helped to stamp out tribal warfare and check disease, they have certainly made the lives of the natives happier—often enough at the price of their own. But many will argue that there is a debit side to the account, and that inappropriate social patterns have been imposed upon people who would have been better without them. One would also like to know what the natives think when they hear the different missions preaching their often mutually contradictory creeds.
Had we not been engaged on an entirely different project, with two publishers and three taxation departments breathing heavily down the backs of our necks, we would have liked very much to stay in the Torres Straits area for a few months to study the relations between the white and colored races. There were many paradoxes which I was never able to resolve on our brief visit, partly because fear of committing some gaffe prevented me from getting involved in close conversations with the boys. (One of them remarked to Mike: “You understand us—Arthur doesn’t.” There was some truth in this—but Mike had spent months in the area and had worked on boats manned entirely by natives. By this time he should have understood them.)
There was nowhere any traces of the subservience, open or implied, that so often characterizes the attitude of the colored people toward the whites in, for example, the southern part of the United States. Everybody called everybody else by his first name; the skipper was “Bill” to all his crew. I sometimes wondered what my friends in Florida would have thought if they could have seen another typical Thursday Island sight—the all-black clientele at a bar being served by a white lady who was obviously a respectable member of the community and not a refugee from a Somerset Maugham story. This sight raised another mystery I never solved. The mainland natives (the aborigines) are not allowed to drink, nor are most of the islanders. As a result, of course, the police have to waste much of their time making out charges against those who break this law by catering to an automatically created demand.
Yet at the same time that part of the colored community which is presumed to have a sufficient sense of responsibility is permitted to drink whenever it pleases. In one bar I was, quite legally, brought a beer by the brother-in-law of our head diver, who was himself not supposed to drink. I could not help reflecting that there must be all sorts of social complications when one section of a family is compulsorily teetotal. No wonder that, all too frequently, a perfectly orderly party may end up with both host and guests in court next morning. . . .
The popular fallacy still exists—even in Australia, where people ought to know better—that the aborigines are a primitive, backward race incapable of higher education. The fact is that there are no intellectually retarded members of the human family, and an aboriginal baby brought up in a white environment would be just as likely—or unlikely—to become a philosopher or a professor of mathematics as his fair-skinned companions.
The Department of Native Affairs, which watches over the interests of the colored population (both mainland aboriginals and islanders), clearly has a somewhat tricky task to perform, and how well it does it I have no way of telling. Nor can I judge how firmly based was the complaint of one Australian taxpayer that the natives were always given first priority in everything, and that the D.N.A. wouldn’t be happy until it had cleared all the whites out of the area.
XVIII
Pearls and Politics
During our last weekend on Thursday Island, we suddenly realized that we had been so busy racing round the Torres Straits that we had seen practically nothing of T.I. itself. As it was a beautiful day—and much too hot for walking—we hired a cab and set out into the interior. About ten minutes later, after winding through dusty lanes, we had crossed the island and found ourselves on its unfamiliar, and relatively unpopulated, eastern shore. By good luck, and not by planning, we arrived just in time to witness and entertaining and instructive ceremony.
The natives from Darnley Island—about 120 miles northeast of T.I.—were celebrating the arrival on their shores of the first missionaries in 1871. A group of extremely ferocious savages were dancing round the Church of England priest, their hostility apparently directed not so much toward him as toward each other. They were reenacting with gusto the intertribal wars which had flourished before the arrival of the London Missionary Society, and the padre was having a tough time disarming them. Eventually he succeeded, the spears and axes were thrown aside, and all concerned sat down amicably together and engaged in a peaceful discussion, with exchange of cigarettes. The whole mime was watched by an interested crowd of islanders, many of whom could not have been more than one generation removed from the cannibals whose pacification we were witnessing.
There is a piquant legend attached to this first landing on Darnley. The islanders were not, in 1871, very hospitable to strangers. It was true that they were welcomed to dinner, but only in a passive role. However, according to the native beliefs, it was prophesied that one day a spirit would land on a certain beach, which was taboo and never used by any boats. Knowing nothing of the legend, the missionaries happened to choose this beach to disembark, and so were spared the fate that would otherwise have immediately befallen them.
It is a touching story, and may even be true. However, one would be ill advised to quote it as an example of the workings of Providence. The cannibal feast was merely postponed for a few years, not canceled altogether. But there was an unfailing supply of missionaries, and in the long run, of course, they had the last word. Though to the best of my knowledge “long pig” has never been proved to lead to any digestive disorders, it came off the Torres Straits menus half a century ago.
After this rem
inder of the old times, everyone relaxed to enjoy some native dancing, carried out to the rhythmic beat of long, tubular drums. Much of the time the dancers were in the crouching position, swinging their arms and stamping their feet. The dances were interesting, but after a while the unvarying beat grew somewhat monotonous— or, possibly, my ear was not sufficiently perceptive to appreciate the subtle variations. Once or twice the music set echoes of The Rite of Spring jangling in my memory, and I wondered who had influenced whom. In this age of phonographs and universal radio, the obvious answer might not be the correct one, for the influence of the western world is everywhere. I shall never forget one evening in a dusty oriental bazaar, when the heat, the smell, and all the trappings of a strange civilization were for a few moments utterly obliterated by the limpid notes of Beethoven’s Für Elise, emerging from a music box with more magic than any genie being released from a bottle.
Though the dancers (and the audience) were obviously enjoying themselves, there was one respect in which we felt a little disappointed. Too often, the costumes were an unfortunate blending of east and west. Most of the men had concealed their torsos beneath cheap cotton vests, and some of the women were wearing long black negligees which seemed even more inappropriate. We wondered whether the original native costumes had been banned, or merely forgotten.
The dance was followed by a splendid dinner, which the most ferocious of the “savages,” in excellent English, kindly invited us to join. Turtle steak was on the menu, but I was conservative and stuck to roast pork. There was always a risk, I felt, of inadvertently acquiring a taste for one of these exotic dishes, and that would make me very discontented when I got back to London or New York.
It was now dusk, and we were told that the dancing and singing would continue far into the night. So three hours later we came back again with flash cameras, and on a perfect night under an almost full moon we watched the islanders swinging back and forth in the glare of paraffin lamps, and listened to the pounding of the drums. From time to time a soloist would sing a ballad which would produce shrieks of laughter, and there was so much audience participation that sometimes it was difficult to distinguish performers from spectators.
The audience had a curious method of expressing approval of particular dancers. From time to time someone would dash in among the ranks of swaying bodies, and sprinkle talcum powder over a dancer who he considered had given an unusually good performance. Before long not a few of the men were streaked with white from the vigorously shaken tins wielded by their lady friends. Though it may be a little ungallant to say so, honesty compels me to report that most of these dusky maidens were in the 170-pound class—or over.
Tired out merely with watching, we left soon after midnight. As the truck carried us back through the valleys that led to the other side of the island, the throbbing of the drums slowly died out into the darkness behind us. The men whose faith and devotion had brought them to these islands more than eighty years ago would have been pleased, I thought, to know that they were still so well remembered.
It often happens that, just as you are about to leave a place, a whole array of enticing prospects and opportunities suddenly arises. So it proved to be on Thursday Island. Since we had spent so little time ashore, we had failed to present our respects to the Director of Native Affairs, although we had come armed with a letter of introduction to him. Not until two days before we had arranged to leave the island did we finally pay a belated visit to Mr. O’Leary, who for many years has been responsible for administering Government policy in the Torres Straits region.
As we told the Director the reason for our visit, and described our activities on the Gahleru, it quickly became obvious that he was intensely interested in the Hookah diving gear we had been using, and we realized that we were getting involved in local politics. For the last year or so the pearling industry had been in a state of considerable turmoil, largely owing to the fact that for more than half a century the best divers were the Japanese. Or even if they were not the best—and many disputed this—there seemed little question that they were willing to take more risks, and to work in deeper waters, than divers of other nationalities.
Now, as might be expected, Japanese divers became even rarer than pearls after December, 1941, and when the war ended the Australians (who have not forgotten the thousands of men who never came back from the prison camps in the short-lived empire of the Rising Sun) did not welcome their reappearance. Yet many of the pearling masters—particularly those at Darwin, in the Northern Territory—maintained that the industry could not carry on without Japanese divers, and applied to the Government for permission to bring them into the country. An export trade worth a million and a half dollars a year was at stake, and it was hard not to feel sorry for the unfortunate politicians caught in the cross fire between the pleas of the pearling masters and the protests of the ex-servicemen’s associations.
There was one way out of the dilemma. If proper equipment and training would enable native divers to operate as efficiently as the Japanese, there would be no need to import foreign divers and everyone would be happy—except the Japanese.
We were not particularly surprised, therefore, when Mike was asked to put on another demonstration of our gear, on one of the luggers controlled by the Department. On general principles, we were all in favor of anything that looked like improving the diver’s hard and dangerous life. It must also be confessed that the idea of casually revolutionizing an industry that had been static for half a century, as an accidental byproduct of our progress along the Great Barrier Reef, made a strong appeal to our sense of the dramatic.
While at the Department of Native Affairs we also had an opportunity of photographing the remarkable “Chalice” pearl, which had been discovered a few years previously and was still waiting for a buyer. It consists of two separate pearls which were found together, one fitted into a perfectly formed socket on the other. When stood upright with the larger pearl underneath, the two form such a perfect inch-high replica of a chalice or goblet that it seems incredible that it is the result of pure chance. Presumably two adjacent centers of irritation in the mantle of the oyster became nacred, and when the pearls met their growth retained its symmetry, one pearl starting to envelop the other.
Mike’s demonstration of the Hookah diving gear took place on one of the Department of Native Affairs’ luggers, which had been specially called across from the neighboring island of Badu. It was the first time I had been aboard a real pearling lugger, and the contrast with the relative luxury and cleanliness of the Gahleru was considerable. I realized how lucky I had been to have observed the operations of the pearling industry as a first-class passenger instead of traveling steerage.
We pulled out of T.I. on a dull, wet morning and dropped anchor in about five fathoms of muddy water. The crew (islanders this time, not mainlanders like the boys on the Gahleru, gathered round Mike as he explained how the equipment worked, and one by one they went overboard to try it out. A couple came up spluttering, unable to keep water out of face masks which had not been properly fitted, but most of them managed quite well. Some refused to remain near the lugger, where Mike could keep an eye on them, but immediately wandered off on tours of exploration restricted only by the length of hose available. There was no doubt about their interests; the problem was to keep them from running before they had learned to walk.
When we got back to Thursday Island, somewhat determined attempts were made to induce Mike to stay behind and take on the job of resident diver-instructor. A house and a fat salary were waved in front of his face, but though his palm was obviously itching he remembered certain plans he had made to liven up New York in a few months’ time, and reluctantly turned the offer down.
Another tempting, but dangerous, proposal was also made to him. Halfway between Thursday Island and Papua lie the Darnley Deeps, one of the richest areas for shell in the whole Torres Straits region. It has long been known as the Divers’ Graveyard, for
the bottom is forty fathoms down and is broken up into innumerable canyons and crevasses, so that the diver is in continual danger of having his air hose fouled. At such a depth it is possible to work for periods of only about ten minutes; the divers must then be brought to the surface at a slow and carefully controlled rate if he is to avoid paralysis or death through the “bends.” The cemetery on Darnley Island contains scores of Japanese graves, for where great wealth exists—and shell abounds in these waters—men will always take a risk to try and reach it. A few more fathoms—a few more minutes on the bottom—yes, it is easy to understand the temptation, and how many are certain that they could resist it?
While there is no way of avoiding the bends except by careful adherence to the ascent tables—whatever type of diving equipment is used, short of a completely sealed chamber—it looked as if the Hookah units might allow the diver to work more comfortably and efficiently in these dangerous depths, and the pearling masters were anxious to try the experiment. They wanted to give Mike a lugger so that he could go out to Darnley and see how much shell he could pick up at the thirty or forty fathoms mark. Mike, who will stop at nothing if it is sufficiently interesting or exciting, was willing enough to make the attempt, but it could not be fitted into our program.
Once you have watched a pearl diver at work, and have accompanied him as he hunches his slow-motion way along the bottom, you quickly take his occupation for granted and it seems no more dangerous than that of, for example, a building construction worker or a steeplejack. It is not until you hear first-hand accounts of diving accidents, or pay a visit to one of the island graveyards, that you really appreciate the hazards which are always present, even when the weather is calm and the sea bed smooth and unbroken by obstacles. During his relatively short period as a professional pearl diver on a single lugger, Mike had two opportunities of seeing how easily a diver can die.
The Coast of Coral Page 15
