EAST DONYLAND​ / ROWHEDGE

THE SOUTHERN DAILY ECHO - Tuesday 5 December 1933 - “YACHT’S WORLD CRUISE FROM NORTHAM - Wonderful Time for Baron’s Guests - CAPTAIN’S ADVENTURE ON CANNIBAL ISLAND - Two pigs equal one wife in the island of Sakan, South Pacific, one of the many places visited in a remarkable world cruise in a craft now lying at Camper and Nicholson’s Northam Yard, Southampton.

The steam yacht Heliopolis, of 766 tons, left Southampton at the end of May, and in five and a half months cruised 29,000 miles in the course of encircling the globe and calling at some of the strangest places on it.

The Heliopolis belongs to a young Belgian Baron, Jean Empain, who, with a party of 14 friends, made the cruise with the principal object of seeing something of the life and customs of the Pacific.

Her captain is a Southampton man, Captain H.V. Cranfield, her chief engineer, Mr. H. Fox, is of Southampton,  and most of her crew of 33 belong to the district.

START FROM NORTHAM - After a re-fit, the Heliopolis left Camper and Nicholson’s Northam Yard, on May 30 picked up at Havre 11 of the Baron’s guests, called at Las Palmas on June 16, reached the island of St. Thomas, West Indies on (June 27th?), and the Panama Canal (blank) days later.

They steamed on to Mexico, and there the Baron, who had crossed the Atlantic in the Bremen, and four other guests joined the Heliopolis, which left without delay for the islands of the South Seas.

The party saw life among the various native races, mingled with cannibals, watched wild dances by moonlight, and observed the natives’ quaint customs.

AMONG CANNIBALS - There was much preparation and excitement when the Heliopolis reached Tomman Island, in the New Hebrides, the first of the cannibal group. Machine guns had been mounted on the deck, and there was a muster of all arms, including sporting rifles and shot guns, in case there was trouble.

Fortunately, the firearms were not needed. A small French trader was anchored in the harbour and when the Baron and his guests landed they were met in a friendly way by the natives.

It was at that island that Captain Cranfield  had a nerve-racking experience.

The Baron and his guests having been away on the island and out of sight for a couple of hours, Captain Cranfield began to get rather apprehensive of danger, and went ashore with one of the man-eating natives, who had come out to the yacht in a canoe.

The man led him inland along a narrow path with tall grasses on either side. The cannibal had a long murderous-looking knife in one hand; the Captain was entirely unarmed.

At length, after a mile walk, the man stopped and began beating on a hollow tree. A band of natives appeared, as if by magic and the captain thought his last hour had come.

GESTURE OF FRIENDSHIP - He walked forward boldly, however, and shook hands with the cannibals, who appreciated his gesture of friendship. He gave them some tobacco, with which they were delighted, and eventually he was able to induce his guide to take him back to the yacht.

He had not seen the Baron and his party at all, but they returned safely. It transpired that they had been to see a village and the cannibals with whom they went had heard that the captain was on the island through the message beat on the hollow tree.

WEIRD DANCE - At Aitchen Island, another of the New Hebrides group, the party saw some amazing dancing. Apparently the natives gathered together every night and to the beating of sticks on bits of wood ingeniously hollowed out to give different notes, danced for hours on end working themselves into such a frenzy that they dashed pigs to death on the ground to appease themselves.

The women folk, with their babies, were allowed to watch these weird dances, but only after the dancing were they allowed to mingle with the men.

CONVICTED CANNIBALS - In the interior of New Guinea, cannibalism is still rife. When the Heliopolis called at Samarai Island, New Guinea, the Australian Resident came to lunch, and afterwards  brought out for the party to see two of the 30(?) prisoners who were serving sentences for cannibalism.

The two men who were brought forward under the guard of two Indian policemen, were members of a tribe living from 200 to 300 miles inland up the Fly River, and were each serving five-year sentences, having been caught with 10 human heads in their possession.

Apparently the tribesmen occasionally become afflicted with a lust for human flesh, come down the river, attack other tribes, carry off as many heads as possible, and celebrate with a gigantic feast.

At Marauki, New Guinea, where the Heliopolis called a few days later, Captain Cranfield was told that two Australians had been ambushed a few miles inland and eaten. He was warned that it would be extremely dangerous for the party to venture inland, and he took the hint.

MATRIMONIAL BARTER - In the islands of the New Hebrides group the custom of bartering pigs for wives still prevails, the men of the islands who have more pigs are able to have more wives. Naturally, something depends on the size and quality of the pigs, but two to three for a wife, Captain Cranfield was told, is the usual rate of exchange. Traders who call at the islands bring pigs to barter for copra.

Most of the natives are very dark, with jet black hair, but in Theopia Island, one of the Banks Islands group, the Baron and his guests were amazed to see fine-looking men with long flowing hair with brown and red tints in it, pointing to the fact that in the dim and distant past some white men had been marooned on the island, and had settled there, and interbred with the native population.

The clothes of the natives, when they had any, differed in the various islands. In Rennell Island, of the Solomon group, where there was no Resident, the men wore merely a small loin-cloth of coconut fibre, rings in their noses, and the lobes of their ears extended by means of wooden blocks from one to two inches.

TATTOOED JUMPERS - The women had their bodies tattooed in various designs, as if representing a woman’s jumper and skirt, in imitation of the clothes of civilised people, with rings in their noses and ears. At Marauke, in Dutch New Guinea, they looked even stranger, wearing tusks instead of rings in their noses.

The natives of most of the islands have an extraordinarily primitive existence, keeping alive mainly on coconuts, on the fish that they catch with bow and arrow, and by other queer means, on goats’ milk when they have goats, and on pigs. Captain Cranfield thought, however, that the large majority were contented and happy. Most of them took a childish delight in clothes.

At some of the islands at which the Heliopolis called a white man had not been seen for many years and the approaches were barely chartered (sic). Fortunately the water is perfectly clear and of a wonderful blue in the South Seas. Captain Cranfield used to proceed from island to island with a man aloft to look out for coral reefs.

FEAT OF NAVIGATION - It was a fine feat of navigation for not once did the Heliopolis touch the bottom, though some of the harbours had very difficult approaches. For example, the entrance to the harbour of Penrhyn Island, one of the N(?) Cook group, is only half a cable wide. That island is famous for its pearls and for its native divers, who bring up the oysters.

The Heliopolis visited about 50 islands from July 1st, when she reached the Marquesas Islands, to August 20th, when she arrived at Surabaya, Java. At Singapore on October 2nd the Baron left the yacht and flew home by air liner as he had to get back to Europe to look after his many business interests.

Returning by Colombo, Aden, Suez, Port Said, Algiers, Gibraltar and Ostend the Heliopolis reached Havre on November 16th, and there most of the party disembarked taking with them many and strange curios of their world trip.

COMPUTATION OF COST - The cost of the cruise Captain Cranfield computes to be in the region of £13,000. The Heliopolis was converted into an oil burning yacht three years ago, with a cruising radius of 5,000 miles. As it was impossible to get oil in the South Seas, 450 tons of it had to be sent on ahead to Tahiti, to Fiji, and to Thursday Isle, which, naturally, added much to the expense of the cruise.

The Baron, who is only 30 years of age, is, in Captain Cranfield’s estimation, an outstandingly brilliant man. He has a palace and much land in Heliopolis (Egypt), from which his yacht takes her name, is the chairman of a Belgian bank, has large interests in the underground railways of Paris, and is chairman of numerous companies.

His party was a regular League of Nations, young, merry, and bright, five Belgians, one Englishwoman, two Canadians, one Norwegian, one American, three French and one Italian. The girls all dressed in white sailor suits.

SKIPPER’S HISTORY - Captain Cranfield has been connected with yachts for 25 years. He took over command of the Heliopolis five years ago, when the Baron bought her from Mr. Anthony Drexel, an American. She was built on the Clyde in 1903 to the design of G.L. Watson.

The Baron has now cruised in the Heliopolis in most parts of the world. Next year he intends to take her out to China and Japan.

The Heliopolis had wonderful weather throughout the cruise until she got back to Algiers. She called at 72 ports on her voyage, and had an average cruising speed of over 10 knots, with the advantage of the south-east trade wind at her back almost throughout.”