Many were the wild and fantastic rumours we had heard at the Residency
at Cape Nelson, on the north-east coast of British New Guinea,
concerning a curious tribe of natives whose feet were reported to be
webbed like those of a duck, and who lived in a swamp a short way in
the interior, some distance to the north of us. I myself had at first
been inclined to sneer at these reports, but Monckton, the Resident
Magistrate, with his superior knowledge of the Papuans, as the natives
of New Guinea are called, was sure that there was some truth in the
reports, as the Papuan who has not come much in contact with the
white man is singularly truthful though guilty of exaggeration.
I knew this, but I had in mind the case of the Doriri tribe, who
lived in the interior a little to the south of us. These Doriri (who
had had the kindly forethought to send us word that they were coming
down to pay us a visit to eat us, for the Papuan, though a savage,
is often most suave and courteous and by no means lacking in humour),
were reported to us as having many tails, but needless to say when
we made some prisoners, we were scarcely disappointed to find that
the said tails protruded from the back of the head (in much the same
fashion as the Chinaman's pigtail); in this case each man had many
tails, which were fashioned by rolling layers of bark from a certain
tree -- closely allied, I believe to the "paper tree" of Australia --
round long strands of hair.
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