Old Yodda Days

Some Quaint Incidents of 40 Years Ago

THE following are extracts from the diary of an old miner written 30 years ago in Papua: “Samarai in those days • 1898-9) was a very primitive little town; its only hotel offered food and lodging of the most ele mentary kind. Meals were served in a big common dining-room, but of bed-rooms there were none, and the miners slept in an outbuilding which they shared with the poultry of the establishment—the men sleeping upon their blankets which they spread on the floor and the fowls taking the rafters overhead.

“There was plenty of work for the Magistrate on the Yodda, principally in settling disputes about water-rights, and in hearing applications of one sort or an other. However, the miners always treated him most hospitably when he visited their camps, but sometimes the hospitality was more embarrassing than gratifying.

"On one occasion the principal witness in a water-right case was absent. The As sistant Magistrate, looking for him, found him asleep in his bunk, with a pot of soup on the ground beside him. In his slumbers one foot had roamed, and he was neacefully reposing with one bare foot in his dinner.

“When he was awakened, he jumped from his bunk and. without noticing what had happened, hospitably insisted on the Magistrate staying to lunch. ‘l’ve got some good soup here’, he explained, ‘and we don’t get that every day.’

“The Magistrate, hurriedly explaining that soup disagreed with him, and that he was feeling off colour, got away from the camp as soon as he could, leaving a rather offended host.

THERE was something, of a festival in progress at the Yodda when I arrived there. The warden was ex pected on his usual visit, to look into legal rights, etc., and all the miners had col lected from the outlying camps for the occasion, and were having a very good time.

“The professional joker of the field was out on a ‘jamboree’ as usual and was fir ing off his revolver very freely, though only in . a playful manner. One morning, he had been boring holes in the store walls—aiming, as he said, at a fowl (tinned) on the shelf inside—when a miner named Augustus, who had the re putation of being the dirtiest man on the field, walked in to make purchases.

“The jester strode up to him. held his revolver close to the miner’s luxuriant beard, and fired a bullet through it, rather spoiling its beauty. Naturally, the victim seemed alarmed, but the jester, laying his hand on his shoulder, assured him it was all right, and that he was only giving it a bath. Gussie, however, did not care for this kind of valeting, and dropped his purchases, and fled as though Old Nick were at his heels.

“The Jester remained in the store, wandering about with the revolver in his hands, and could find no further victims until a newcomer arrived from the coast He greeted him by firing a bullet between his legs. The newcomer, however, had no nerves and returned the greeting with a nod, and, ordering a drink passed over the incident casually. The cheerful marks man quietened down considerably, and was

more himself when the Magistrate arrived —on this occasion accompanied by a high Church dignitary. "TT was thought that the pastoral visit A furnished a fortunate opportunity for reading the burial service in the Yodda cemetery—a melancholy little spo: where lay, side by side, the unfortunates who had given their lives in the search for gold and who had been buried one after another, without prayer of any kind, “When the matter was put before the Churchman, he readily agreed, and one morning found * us all mustered at the little enclosure that contained the remains of our departed comrades. All were there —Magistrates, storekeepers and miners— and among these stood the jester, who was not himself. The service was read in solemn silence, and we all joined in singing a hymn.

“Suddenly, the jester, who was feeling

more cheerful than is considered correct at a wholesale funeral service, stepped forward, and in a loud and hiccoughy voice proposed a vote of thanks to the officiating minister. He seemed quite be wildered when ihe usual cheers did not follow, and his request was met with stern silence—though most of us found g Tea t difficulty in maintaining it. « * NOTHER miner, named Red Bob, re ceived a shock t 0 his nerves when prospecting at Woodlark, and in a manner that somewhat recalls the ancient anecdote of the Jew who ate roast pork on the sly, and was startled by a thunder storm which he regarded as the Voice 0 f offended Heaven “ Red Bob who ha d been doing his best to earn an attack of delirium tremens, and very nea rly succeeding, left for his claim in the hope of working things off, though doubtful of the state of his nerves.

“While he was working, a very sharp earthquake shook the locality, and a dish of wash, which he had panned out and left on a flat rock, began to travel to wards him.

“Bob stared in horror at the moving dish and, turning to his mate alongside, he exclaimed: ‘That settles it! I’ve got ’em. I’m going home!’ And he stumbled off down the track to his camp.”

Rev. Father J. Deihl, who has been a Marist missionary in Western Samoa for nearly 20 years, will go on long furlough at the end of the year to visit his father in U.S.A.

Rev. R. J. Maddox, Chairman of the Samoan District of the Methodist Mis sion, returned to Apia in August with his wife, after furlough in Australia.