The
inhabitants were fleeing away from us in their curious canoes, which,
unlike most Papuan canoes, had no outrigger whatever. Their paddles
also were peculiar, the blades being very broad. Close to us were
our two Baruga guides in a canoe with one of the Agai Ambu tribe,
who directly he saw us plunged into the lake and disappeared under
the tangled masses of water lilies.
He remained under some time, but on his coming to the surface again,
one of the Baruga men plunged in after him, and we witnessed an
exciting wrestling match in the water. The Baruga man was by far
the more powerful of the two, but he was no match for the almost
amphibious Agai Ambu, who slipped away from his grasp like an eel,
and swam away, with the Baruga man in close pursuit. All this time
a canoe full of the Agai Ambu was rapidly approaching to the rescue,
waving their paddles over their heads, and the Baruga man, seeing this,
climbed back into his canoe and paddled back to us.
Meanwhile the police had made a rush for a canoe which was close at
hand; but it at once upset, having no outrigger and being exceedingly
light and thin; it was, in fact, a species of canoe quite new to our
police. In any case they would not have had the slightest chance of
overtaking the fleet Agai Ambu in their own canoes. It looked very
much as if after all we were not to have the chance of verifying
the strange reports about the formation of these people. As a last
resource we sent over our two Baruga guides in a canoe to speak with
those of the tribe who had not fled. As the guides approached they
shouted out that we were friends, and that as we were friends of the
Baruga tribe, we must be friends of the Agai Ambu tribe as well.
We held up various tempting trade goods, including a calico known as
Turkey-red, bottles of beads, etc. This and a long conversation with
the Baruga men seemed to carry some weight with them, for the Baruga
soon returned with one of their number, who turned round in the canoe
with his arms outstretched to his friends and cried or rather chanted,
in a sobbing voice, what sounded like a very weird song, which seemed
quite in keeping with the mournful surroundings and lonely life of
these people.
This weird song, heard under such circumstances, quite thrilled me,
and wild and savage though the singer was, the song appealed to me
more than any other song has ever done. It looked as if he might
be a ne'er-do-weel or an idiot whom his friends could afford to
experiment with before taking the risk of coming over themselves,
but his song was no doubt a farewell to his friends, whom he possibly
never expected to see again.
