Bligh And The Darnley Islanders.

Peep Into History of Well-known Torres Strait Island

(By our Thursday Island Correspondent.)

THE modern Darnley Islander seems to have a natural objection to be ing “protected.” But, truculent as he sometimes is, his conduct is mild compared to that of his forebears in the days of Captain Bligh, of Bounty fame.

Bligh made his second voyage through Torres Strait in 1792, as Com mander of H.M.S,. '/’Providence” his first was in the open boat in which he was set adrift after the mutiny), and he entered through the Barrier Reef, near its northern end, close to Darnley Island. He was accompanied by Lieu tenant Portlock, in the brig “Assist ant,” and on Bligh’s own ship one of the junior officers was that Matthew Flinders who still remains the premier explorer of our reef-strewn waters.

Bligh anchored off Darnley Island on September 4, and bestowed on it its very aristocratic name. But it was not long before he learnt the nature of the “Indians” whose solitude he had dis turbed. They swarmed out in canoes to interview the men on the “Providence’s” boats —which had been sent on in ad vance to find a passage through the reefs—making signs of friendship and holding out green coconuts for ex change.

The officer-in-charge disliked their appearance so much, that he started back to safety, what time the islanders did their best to cut him off. Finding themselves frustrated in this scheme, the natives openly prepared their bows by stringing arrows on them. How ever, the Englishmen got in first and a discharge of muskets sent the sally ing party home.

That the Darnley natives of that day were skillful sailors is proved by the

following extract from Flinder’s Journal: “No boats could have been man oeuvred better in working 'to windward than were these long canoes by the naked savages. Had the four (canoes) been able to reach the cutter, it is dif ficult to say whether the superiority of our arms would have been equal to the great difference of numbers, consider ing the ferocity of these people and the skill with which they seem to manage their weapons.”

More amicable relations were estab lished the next day, when the natives came right out to the two ships and bartered their bows and arrows for articles of iron, known to them as “Three.” The canoes, according to Flinders, were fifty feet long and made from a single tree. As the vegetation is sparse on Darnley, the logs must have been either procured from New Guinea or else been carried there by currents, as at the present time.

Before leaving this part of Torres Strait, Bligh named Nepean, Stephens and Campbell Islands.

A few days later the “Provi dence” was again in trouble.

While passing through an opening in the reefs, near Warrior Island, the two vessels were directly attacked by seven canoes full of plucky but misguided natives, and the ships’ guns loaded with grape shot had to be fired before the battle terminated, Bligh’s life must have been a stormy one, owing to his arbitrary character, reflected in the mutiny on the “Bounty” and in his deposition from the govern orship of N.S.W.; yet it was not devoid of honours. He was personally thanked by Nelson after the battle of Copen

hagen, and was successively created Rear and Vice Admiral after his de parture from Australia. But he was of a breed that could never exist for any time in authority to-day. “A sea wolf; a brutal, intrepid, indefatigable man.

All his words were words of wrath. All his orders were threats. All his threats were of the lash.” Thus wrote a famous French naval surgeon of the man whose tyranny induced a mutiny—the man, too, whose pluck and endurance brought to a safe completion one of the most famous small-boat voyages in history.

Nine months later Darnley again be came notorious. In 1793, two sailing vessels, “Hormuzeer” and “Chester field,” left Norfolk Island with the in tention of traversing Torres Strait by a route not hitherto attempted. In due course, “Bligh’s Darnley Island” was sighted, and there the two ships struck immediate trouble.

Bartering had been taking place be tween the visitors and the natives; and re-assured, no doubt, by the latter’s friendly attitude, the chief mate of the “Chesterfield,” another officer,) and a passenger named Hill belonging to the N.S.W. Corps, went ashore with five seamen in a whaleboat.

On the fourth day of their absence a search was made, and Mr. Dell with two other boats went right round the island without finding any traces of the missing men. They were followed round the beaches by a large crowd of natives, who used every inducement in their power to get them to land. At Treachery Bay, indeed, it was found that a party was lying in ambush wait ing for them to do so and, when this failed, hostilities broke out, resulting in the death of one of the natives.

On July 10, a strongly-armed party landed, and found some of their lost friends’ possessions, but no other signs of them. In the huts they found human skulls and dried hands hanging up, and other marks of savagery. The Union Jack was first hoisted; and then retribution was exacted by the burning of 135 huts, 16 canoes, and the destruc tion of many gardens. This annexation of Darnley, which included all the neighbouring islands and the adjacent coast of New Guinea, was not attended by the people most concerned. They were hiding in the hills, and must have seen the two vessels finally sail away with great relief.

From information gained at Stephens Island, it was learned that Captain Hill and four seamen had been murdered on Darnley, but their bodies were never found.

Three of the party who had gone ashore escaped, however, and then started on one of those amazing small boat ventures which seem to have been the final stage of many a shipwrecked party in Torres Strait. In this case, the survivors managed to get to their boat. They cut the rope and got away —without provisions, without a com pass. The mother ships being five leagues to windward and, therefore, be yond their reach, these three intrepid men sailed westward through the Straits, and finally reached the islands of Timor Laut.

Many years later, however, in 1843, Blackwood and Yule, in the Fly and Bramble, came to a good understanding with the natives of Darnley—although the latter did show fight when pressed to help in the search for certain men of the expedition who had been lost along the Papuan coast.