American Eyes

New Guinea As Seen Through

(From Notes Mode by a United States Army Officer)

I HAVE made my first contact with one of the largest, wildest, most difficult islands left in the world. The dent of civilisation in New Guinea is small; and, if the fight against the jungle was not constantly maintained, all vestiges of white rule would disappear almost immediately.

The combination of fertile soil in the accessible areas, torrential rain, and humid tropical atmosphere make ideal growth conditions, and the tangle of vines and trees grows up to confound any attempt to beat it. Now that many of the missions and trading posts have been abandoned for over a year, one can see how quickly the country reverts to its wild state.

It may be different in the future. The armed forces are swarming over jungle trails which formerly discouraged white men; and new tactics for clearing, and building, and fighting tropical disease, are being learned.

A bulldozer, a steam shovel, a few trucks and a gravel pit can rip the jungle like a hurricane and the hard-packed coral or gravel roads defy the rain and jungle growth. The constant patrol of armed men over the rugged, jungle-covered mountains, which cover the country

except for the narrow coastal plain have introduced the unknown interior for the first time, They are learning of rock formations indicating gold, iron, coal and oil, and they are discovering high, temperate fertile plateaux which some day may provide Australia with all the rubber and tea she will ever need, There is water-power, too, in fantastic quantities, tumbling out of the moun tains, over falls of breath-taking beauty It has been proven that the natives can be taught to perform ordinary mechanical skilled jobs in a superior manner, indicating a large force of potential untapped manpower, fTIHIS brings up a discussion of the 1 native himself. He is distinctly above the Australian aboriginal; but the generosity of the country and the lassitude of the tropics make him satis fied to spend his life weaving mats, fish ing and just resting. In spite of this easy life, he does not grow fat, because the diet is not varied nor plentiful Even now, when the Australian Gov emment issues a fairly generous ration of bully beef, tea, biscuits and rice to the native, the children have pot bellies

indicative of malnutrition. Many times, this pot belly is caused by the constant presence of malaria, with its repeated flareups.

Perhaps this malarial condition con tributes to the weak heart and lungs which are universal. A stethoscope on a native gives a sound resembling a rolling barrel of tin cans, and their asthmatic breathing is tragic to hear. They are ready victims of lung ailments, and usually trivial diseases end up in fatal pneumonia. Measle epidemics are par ticularly feared, for this reason.

AND yet, in other ways, the natives are tough babies. They can go on travelling, over back-breaking hills and trails, day in and day out, on a minimum of food and rest. They proved themselves invaluable as carriers over the rough Kokoda Track. Their ability to recover from severe wounds, such as total penetration by spear, is phenom enal. Their feet are as tough as horses’ hooves, and they can walk on sharp coral or rock without complaint. A half-inch of colourless, bloodless, nerveless callous can be pared from the soles of the feet To watch a native run away from one in the dusk is laughable. All one sees are the alternate flashes of white feet.

Yaws is probably the worst curse of the natives. It is a spirochete disease, like some venereal diseases, and shows itself m skin lesions and terrible arthritic pain, that ties up the joints in a hor rible fashion. The treatment is injection of a bismuth compound and the imme diate reaction is spectacular.

To-day, bismuth has a stiff competi tor in the sulpha drugs. They work miracles on venereal diseases, most of which are not of the more serious types.

They are also saving countless lives which would otherwise be lost to pneu monia. Their use in salves, for the ugly, open, tropic ulcers, which grow to enormous size, is also impressive. All natives have large scars from previous ulcers on their bodies, and they show up brilliantly on their black skin.

NATIVE villages are strung along the coast and the jungle trails and rivers. Few amount to more than a clearing, and not more than eight or ten huts, usually less. Some are indescrib ably dirty, with wild hogs rooting about under the houses, while others have the ground spotlessly cleared, and swept in neat patterns, with a brush broom. Quite often transplanted, multi-coloured tropi cal shrubs and flowers are flourishing in the yard.

The Government furnishes extra rations and the effect can be seen on natives bv their sleek, healthy appear ance. Where this diet is lacking they

are scrawny and thin, and have repul sive, scaly skins. Their ordinary diet consists of taro root, yams, pineapple, banana, papaya, berries and, sometimes, corn. When they have community gar dens, they usually cultivate cleared areas on the sides of the hills, back from the coastal plain.

The natives are a peculiarly childlike race, with incomprehensible minds. A white man never completely understands them, and rarely feels that he can trust one.

THIS brings up a discussion on the half-caste, who is the connecting link. He understands both native and white, and his value as a plantation manager, teacher and missionary is extremely important. There are not nearly enough of them to fill the demand; and, now, most of them are working native labour for the armed forces and are unavailable for their peacetime work.

Their being away from home has had another unfortunate result, in that half caste women are losing their pride in their white blood and are reverting to marrying and breeding with natives. This is too bad: because the half-caste is an intelligent person, and is usually well mannered and quite easy to educate.

They consider themselves white, and live apart from the natives, but do not try to assert their equality with a full white.

The native, on the other hand, is inferior and subservient, and takes orders from either. Natives are smart in the way dogs, horses, and children are smart.

They will do a job not quite perfectly, or not quite fast enough, in order to test out the disciplinary efficiency of a new white overseer. If the boss, “Taubada,” sees through them and disciplines them, they work well, but otherwise they will take increased advantage.

NEW Guinea is unquestionably the worst fighting country in the world.

Our Aussie compatriots say the desert of Egypt is much preferable. The Buna campaign was really rougher than the more-publicised Guadalcanal cam paign.

It is so constantly hot, humid and exhausting. The coastal swamps and heavy underbrush contain swarms of malarial mosquitoes, which make life unbearable at night and cause more casualties than bullets. Each man must carefully hack his way through dense jungle, never seeing his neighbour or his enemy until he is on top of him. The mental strain is terrible.

Of necessity the supply of food and ammunition must be flown in by shuttling transnort or by small boats sneaking up the shore. For weeks at a time, no hot meals can be served, forcing the men to live on C ration or jungle ration. When they finally come out. both Jap and American look like skeletal ghosts.

On the other hand, to fly over the battle-zone, or cruise in a boat among the islands and coastline, is an unfor gettable experience. The palm-studded shores, the coral reefs, the clean beaches, the sheer, forbidding, jungle-covered mountains in the background: all pull and tug at one, luring him to the tropic lassitude and forgetfulness of time that we have all read about. One begins to think there may be something in this beachcomber stuff, after all.

However, a little experience teaches one to look at a lovely coral island and say, “Yes, it’s beautiful; but, underneath it, is a sinister fiend.” Of course, the South Seas belle is a disappointingly far cry from Dorothy Lamour; and I have yet to see any sign of them looking lighter. They sav it’s time to get out, when they start looking white.

1 SMILE to myself when I think back over my first month here. I regret ted volunteering for duty that made me give up my Australian apartment. I cursed the humid heat that made my clothes wet during the night, and rusted my automatic, and turned my shoes green. I hated the ants, spiders and mosquitoes. I found quinine made my skin itch until I could hardly stand it.

My athlete’s foot came back, and joint and gland aches returned, reminding me of injuries of childhood which I had long since forgotten. Canned food was mono tonously tasteless; no cool drinks, pow dered milk, canned butter and bully beef. There was no diversion, little to read, no movies, no adequate radio. Mail was slow. Dust and mud, rain and heat,

plus a frenzy of activity to help the troops up front with our inadequate equipment and personnel.

And yet we knew we were far luckier than the boys a few miles further up, who were suffering worse than we were.

These fpur months have seen an im provement in the malarial rate that makes the Panama Canal record look sick.

Our roads have been improved to defy the rain, and we have built better sani tary facilities. Kerosene refrigerators have come in, and even generators to give us light and power. A reefer ship comes up from Australia regularly and our portable refrigerators hold our fresh meat and vegetables until we want them.

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HOWEVER, our touch is light and transitory, and most of our occupied places and hand-made landing strips will revert back to their former wilder ness. No more five bob for a grass skirt or a bunch of bananas.

Ten bob ($1.65) is the normal monthly wage for a native, but I have seen a five-year-old boy make that much by selling two stalks of bananas, which he hacked off with his machete.

Each jungle trip is new. each gives something to remember. It is incon gruous to walk along a dark jungle trail, with a native cutting the entangling vines, and hear a P-40 snarl by unseen, overhead. I have seen a shallow, crystal-clear stream flash-flood into a roaring, muddy torrent, which com pletely submerged mv jeep in a few minutes and then subsided just as rapidly to its former state. I have fought my way through eight-foot grass and jungle, where ,my only guide was a compass.

Many of a recent consignment of Aus tralian eggs arrived in New Caledonia in a rotten or unusable condition. This must constitute a tragedy for the innum erable teashops that rely on Australian eggs. As stated in November. New Cale donian eggs are unobtainable, even at the equivalent of 9/- Aust., per dozen.