Frogs

Discoveries By A Humorist In Papua

By “Daika”

SINCE landing here, I have had my eyes opened in the matter of frogs.

Yes, they are at times intelligent.

The first night of my visit to this spot in Papua, I was invited to din ner. My host was an affable chap with a “yen” for company, and an uncontrollable thirst when he was in company. He seldom saw strangers, so he had an excuse to indulge when they did arrive.

On this particular night, we had reached the soup stage, and my host was being the perfect host, when there was a thump and a smothered “squark” from the table. It came so suddenly that I nearly choked—and there was a big green frog sitting thoughtfully in the middle of the table! All this time, my companion kept on talking, and did not even change his tone of voice.

Old Froggie slowly climbed on to the pile of sliced bread in the centre of the table, and girded his loins for a take off; but he made a miscal culation, as the bread slipped, he

landed with one leg in the salt. For about three seconds he hesitated, and then became very agitated and left before he was quite ready, with no thought of direction, and landed “ker plump” on the floor. At some later date, he slowly climbed into a pot plant, and rested there for the rest of the night.

Dinner over, we sat round and swapped yarns, and I gave all the latest news of Port Moresby, as I knew it. All was harmony—when there was a noise like a mad Chinese with tonsilitis, and the lamp swayed and nearly over-balanced. My host merely said, “Oh, it’s only a frog”, and called for the cook-boy. The latter removed a half-cooked frog from the top of a very hot lamp.

I was duly installed in a house of my own, and the second night I was reading and dressed only in pyjamas when, without any warning, a cold, clammy thing landed on my bare chest and slid down inside my coat.

I beat all records for a jump from a deck-chair, and I still believe that my heart stopped beating for nearly five minutes. It was only another frog.

QUITE an interesting sport was started, until someone who had not been in the place long said that we were cruel. Each man got a frog, and we all lined up on the lawn.

Then, at a given signal, everyone touched a piece of cotton-wool, dipped in Sloan’s Liniment, to the part of his frog where he thought it would make him jump hardest and furthest. Each competitor was allowed only to apply the liniment once: and the art was to apply it to a spot where the frog would keep jumping straight. For quite a while, we used to have the frogs turning in mid-air to see what the Dickens had hold of them. But, by degrees we became expert at it, and the best men could make a frog take-off as if shot from a gun, and keep moving for 25 yards in a straight line. Much was the excitement when two frogs were taking jump for jump, and nearing the winning-post.

After the kind-hearted gent, with the life membership ticket in the R.S.P.C.A. had done his good work, and we had held a wake to all the departed frogs—and had taken several days to recover from it—one bright lad designed a new amusement. The idea was to find a worm, and give it to the frog, and time them. The winning frog was the one who first finished his worm. But the joke was that everyone had to give his worm to another competitor; and, there fore, everyone was looking for the largest worm possible to find.

It was rather gruesome sport, though, for a frog does not seem to have much inside him except space; and the worm, when about half-way down, would wriggle both ends at once. The outside end used to curl round anything in sight, and the other end would be trying to find a way out of Froggie’s inside. A frog in the starved condition in which most of them were kept for this par ticular sport, would get quite knocked

about. Sometimes the inside end of the worm would find a way down near his leg, and would straighten the frog’s leg out. Then the frog would roll over and over until he got his in nards back to somewhere near nor mal, and would find time to get an other eighth of an inch of worm down.

Talk about the British Bulldog! In about two hundred competitions, I never saw a frog let go. Sometimes he .used to go to sleep, and digest the w r orm already inside, and sometimes the outside piece used to twist itself off, but never did a frog lose what he had swallowed.

This went on for some time, until an ingenious youth discovered a method of “doping” the worms. By careful trials, he discovered a method of making money. After an injection by hypodermic needle he used to bring his worm along and bet on the frog that got it. It must have been an appetising morsel to the frog, as he would work three times as hard as any of the others and always won. It went well until we woke up to the joke. Everyone had to bet on his own frog afterwards.

THEN into our midst came Mr.

Pansy Blossom. Neither of these were his real names, but they will do.

He had been a part of a jazz band, somewhere in Sydney, and he looked it. He had music at his finger tips— or, rather, Rythym. That was the way he said it.

He looked our evening sports over one night, and then went away, deadly sick. For a long time, he was not seen out at night, and, as he lived alone, everyone began to get worried about him.

At last, he issued a general invi tation to an evening’s entertainment at his house. We all went and, as we were sitting around. Pansy gave us a lecture. The world, he said, had passed over the most wonderful voices for years, until he had come along. He went into raptures about tenors and sopranos and basses and, at last, he worked round to the grand finale by removing a curtain from a big, netted-in cage, on the end of his verandah.

There was the finest collection of frogs inside that I have ever seen.

Pansy stood off, and made some motions in front of them and, by de grees, they came to life, with sundry croaks.

Then they broke out into the National Anthem. We all stood up and looked silly. Every frog sounded

his note at exactly the right time, and with exactly the right amount of feel ing Pansy conducted the orchestra with a long slim stick, which he poked through the holes in the netting at times, and a pair of tweezers which he used to pick some stuff from a tin and give to his musicians, every now and again.

The next piece was “Wahoo”—and did the frogs take a delight in swing ing it! After several more short pieces the performance closed for the night.

Pansy was a popular hero. We were all going to make a fortune with Pansy. A collection was started, and the money raised in one night, to en able the whole world to be given the privilege of hearing the world’s natural songsters. The night length ened into a grand spree. We were all millionaires, and Pansy was the richest of all.

Then one of us said he saw a snake.

We had all been in that state, before, so we knew what to do. It took five of us to hold him down. It was the climate that did that to people here, of course. O.P. whisky and rum would help—but it was mainW climate. We held him down for two hours, while all the time he protested that it was a real snake he saw, and that we were mad, and not him.

At last, Pansy, to satisfy the poor devil, lifted up the curtain covering

his frogs, and gave a great cry. The last of his orchestra was just dis appearing down the throat of a large dreamy-eyed, carpet snake.

So, friends, if ever you see a man wandering about the Papuan swamps, and he asks you if you have seen any frogs, and does not take any interest in anything else; and if you ever

come into his camp and find frogs everywhere, just remember this story.

For poor old Pansy Blossom went off his head. And if ever you hear a chorus of frogs at night, just pay at tention to them, and you may realise just how wonderful they would be if trained as Pansy’s were.