"Treat Natives Right”

"Charlie" Ward's Experience

From Our Own Correspondent.

Rarotonga, Nov. 30.

IT was a notable coincidence that the article in the October number of the P.I.M., by Charlie Ward, on “How the Cook Islands became British,” appeared on the same page as an advertisement for the Bank of New South Wales in Broome and Roebuck Bay.

This brings to the mind of Charlie the fact that he took the first squatter to Roebuck Bay in the Melbourne barque “Maroon,” in about 1881.

The squatter’s name was Muir, and he landed with his son, two European drovers, about 500 sheep, two horses, and a dog. He settled some miles inland from the Bay, and Charlie walked over to see him once or twice before the “Maroon” sailed away.

“I often wonder,” says Charlie, “what happened to him. I never got round that way, again, so never heard.” Perhaps someone in Roebuck Bay could tell him?

The “Maroon” lay in the bay for two weeks or so, and on the first day Charlie was warned not to let any of the aborigi nals get behind him, as several pearl divers, hitherto the only Europeans in these parts, had been stabbed in the back.

Charlie listened. “But,” he says, “with evening coming I got restless. I was only a lad then.”

So, filling his pockets with twist tobacco and matches, he slipped down the rope ladder and waded ashore. He could see the lights of the natives’ fires, a hundred yards inland, and made for them and company. He got near and saw the blacks

Sitting in a semi-circle, facing a man who was obviously the chief.

“Well, here goes,” said Charlie. “A knife in the back or a jolly evening." He strode boldly up to the chief, and presented him with the twist and matches.

The men in the semi-circle rose, but the chief motioned them back, and he made Charlie sit by his side. They had been singing and dancing and drinking, and when the “komiti” came round, Charlie joined in.

"Boy," he says, "that was a fine evening. All them young roosters prancing round, and me leaning against the chief, watching the girls. Pretty? Lor’ bless you ’ no! Ugly as sin, and as black; but young, you know, young.”

In a few hours, the contents of the "komiti" were finished and Charlie stood up to go. Three of the "roosters" were told off to accompany him, and a girl was also singled out. But no hanky-panky for me," Charlie was firm. "I made ’em walk in front, and kept one of my eyes swivelled backwards till I’d left the group by the fires.”

Arrived at the beach, he bade them good-night, and waded back to the barque. Going up the ladder he was sure he felt someone underneath him, and was expecting every minute to get a jab in the leg.

But when he reached the deck and looked over, it was the girl who was following him. She stepped on board quite unafraid, and he gave her a good meal beef, biscuits, etc., in his cabin. He told her by signs that he was sleepy, but she showed quite clearly that she had every intention of staying.

“And she did,” grins Charlie, “ugly as a crow, she was, too, and she followed me round like a shadder all the time we

were in the bay, I was the only one who went ashore, and never met anything but smiling faces. When we left they all stood waist deep in the water and yelled —such a caterwauling they set up! My mates laughed at me till they nearly split their pants.

“But I tell you, same to-day as then, treat natives right and they’ll treat you the same. What I told that Muir chap.

Wonder what happened to him?”