# Scented Isles and Coral Gardens: Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies/German New Guinea

II
GERMAN NEW GUINEA
S.S. Stettin, Dec. 1900.
How small a steamship on which you are about to travel appears when you first view it, and how impossibly confined and oppressively cooped-up its cabins—then use makes it seem spacious, and the cabins, and even your narrow berth, become roomy and comfortable. So it was that the German boat of the Nord Deutscher Lloyd Co., the Stettin, appeared to me when I first viewed her in Sydney Harbour, and I wondered whether I was not doing something foolish. But I had hankered for years after New Guinea—that unknown, unexplored, mysterious land. Only to gaze upon its shores would be happiness to me, and I knew I could do little more than that, as I must merely pass by and had no time to linger.
Look at the map and you will see all those countless islands lying between Australia and Asia, including New Guinea, the Celebes, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and the Philippines—thousands of isles of all sizes and sorts. You dismiss them as small unknown isles—Great Britain amongst them would be lost sight of almost, as compared to her some of the others are very large. You will see how near they all are to Australia, New Guinea being separated from it only by, at one point, narrow Straits. Look at it, study it all, and remember ​that the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Germans, and even the Americans are now all planted there together, and must naturally have a say in the destiny of that part of the world, and realise that it is of overwhelming importance that British influence should be paramount, whereas the contrary is now the case.
After all, why should I try to teach you geography? You are supposed to be educated, are you not? and so, of course, must know where all these places are, though, as they are in some cases almost not known to any one yet, you may be excused if you know little about them. Feeling that I am very ignorant and uneducated, I am going to have a look for myself and to try to learn something—though I sigh to think there is so much to learn in the world, and so little time to do it in!
In Sydney they told me I was mad to want to go to New Guinea; the natives murdered and dined on every one they could; the coast fevers and malarias killed off the remainder—and German New Guinea of all places! The very idea of visiting those Germans who had dared to set up a colony of their own so near British possessions!
But, I said, they had as much right to do it as we or any other power; they never could have been there but for the "wonderful wisdom" of my Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary of the day, and the ignorance and insular limit of vision of the so-called Imperial Government. So old a story, so old a story!
Besides, they were there, and likely to remain, and was it not more interesting, more sensible and fair to go and see what they were making of their new colony than howling like a dog in the manger over an accomplished fact?
So near to the Australian continent lies this ​great island of New Guinea that it was only natural Australians should not wish that any Foreign Power should become interested in it and so lead to complications and friction in the future. Part of it had long belonged to the Dutch, since 1828, I think, and they had done nothing with it, neither occupied nor explored the territory they had annexed. The remainder, said Australia, must be British; it was necessary for the peace, well-being, and safety of the Australians that it should be so.
Rumours had flown about that some Foreign Power had designs on it. Strong representations were made to the Home Government—all were ignored. Then Australia, or at least Queensland, hoisted the British Flag on that part of the great island which was not actually under her protection and influence. " Down with that flag!" cried the indignant Lord Derby and the Home Government. " How dare you, mere colonies, attempt such an unconstitutional thing as hoist the British Flag anywhere?" " But the Germans or the French or some one is coming to take it!" "Nonsense!" cried the Wise Men in England, "there is not a chance of such a thing; you are ignorant and foolish; we know better."
So down came the British Flag and in a very short space of time up went the German Flag in the Desirable Land, and there it floats to this day, is to be sometime the cause of serious contention, and has given the happily sea-girt Australian continent a possible enemy at her very doors, and endowed her with a Foreign Question of her own—thanks again to the Wise Men of England. Now, New Guinea is British, German, and Dutch. There will be lots of playing about with questions about boundaries, islands, and the like—there have been some already.
No one in Germany knew where New Guinea ​was, or what it was; but somewhere Germany had got a colony—wasn't that splendid!—near Australia somewhere a quite wild country full of cannibal savages and horrible fevers and things, but admirable as a useful "pin-prick" for Australia and Great Britain in order to obtain concessions and seize upon trade. The people in Germany who accomplished this swelled with gratified pride and at once talked of " our new Colonial Empire," and eventually set to work to form a New Guinea Company to develop this desirable acquisition. These people sat round tables in Berlin, smoked cigars, had many Krugs of beer, and planned the whole thing out beautifully—on paper. True, they were a little consciously shy—"We are beginners," they said humbly, though they did not really feel humble, and of course they felt themselves even then the Coming Race, the Successors of the Modern Roman Empire so palpably on the decline, and really the stupid Englander was stupid indeed. How silly was he about his bit of New Guinea! wanted to protect the natives and their "rights"—the rights of cannibals, indeed—and would not allow a white man to enter the country without permission. Here, indeed, was a chance—a chance for many things, for many a putting of the finger in the pie, for many a request or demand, and, Gott in Himmel, what fine markets in Australia for their trade! The cigars gave forth volumes of smoke, the beer went down wholesale, the "swelled heads" nodded in chorus—heavy nods, perhaps, for the heads were not empty. They resolved to subsidise steamboats to run to the new colony, and it was unanimously agreed that not a single thing required in the new possession should be purchased in Australia or at any British port, if it could be avoided. ​Of course Great Britain, badgered by the Australians, had to have some say in matters, and Germany was so complacent and ready to agree to anything and everything as set forth in the Agreement or Treaty, or whatever it was that the two Great Powers signed. Oh! of course all British rights would be respected; of course there would always be the open door for her—dear friend and cousin—and her subjects would always enjoy every right and liberty in trading or otherwise in common with the subjects of the Fatherland, so long, of course, as they obeyed German Laws. So little more was heard of the matter then—or now—Australia was busy, Great Britain indifferent, and, after all, they were only Germans, and no doubt would eat cocoanuts and play in musical bands happily for evermore; and then, of course, the cannibals would kill and eat them all off, so all would be right and eventually everything would be ours. So said indifferent Britons.
Now and again came stories of murders by natives, and vague paragraphs appeared in the Australasian, the Sydney Morning Herald, or the Bulletin or something—but few heeded or cared. Australia smiled, and her smile was just a sort of smile you know—any sort—and " They're eating up all the Germans in New Guinea," she said.
In Sydney a few eyebrows went up. "Going to New Guinea? What a strange idea!"—some one remonstrated with me. " They'll eat you, or you will die of fever," said to me kind old Mr. Studholme, one of the "Canterbury Pilgrims" who founded Canterbury in New Zealand. I looked at myself in the mirror and said I thought I was safe—I did not look appetising at all. Mrs. Studholme, who was buying up all the curious opals ​in Sydney for her collection, and who used nightly to show me her new purchases, wondered if there were any in New Guinea—would I remember it? A distinguished clansman, who was a Member of the Government, thought I ought not to do such a risky thing. I was not strong enough to face those terrible malarial fevers—they struck you suddenly, and you were dead perhaps in a few hours. What pretty tales I was told. Miss Lottie Collins of Tarrara-boom-de-ay fame said, "Going to New Guinea—really?—where's that?" and thought Sydney "a lovely place." So I took my passage via German New Guinea to Singapore.
Sydney was in a fever of preparation for the approaching visit of their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York and the Federation fêtes, doing some needful cleaning up and otherwise much occupied, and did not shed a single tear when I left her shores on a lovely day, perhaps to grace the dinner-table or sideboard of some New Guinea chief.
Es war ein schöner Sonntag Morgen, anyway a beautiful morning, when I boarded the Stettin, surveyed my white cabin, and found it, after all, not so bad. It had a hanging cupboard and drawers to bestow my belongings in. Then suddenly the door opened and in walked the skipper, Captain Niedermayer, shook hands and welcomed me on board, offering to do all that he could for my comfort in every way (and was as good as his word always).
We steamed away down Sydney's famous harbour, and there were great jokes made as we passed the obsolete fort, for, shortly before this, Sydney woke one morning to see the Boer Flag floating from that fort! Who put it there?—was there no one to guard that fort? ​We passed out through the Heads in brilliant sunshine, and had time to sit down to one meal and inspect each other ere mal de mer claimed its tribute. I, being what is called "a good sailor" with a passionate love of the sea, especially in stormy weather, and, I confess with shame, even liking the bilgy smell of a steamboat, do not know this terrible sickness of the sea, and experience only an impatient scorn of, and an utter lack of sympathy for, those who do. I really could not condescend to make such a nasty exhibition of myself as most others do, and, horrible as it may seem, I appear callously at every meal with a ravenous appetite, and am naturally regarded as a cold-hearted brute devoid of pity for human suffering. But how I hate those others who, after a few days' debauch in utter moral and physical degradation, appear at table again full of life and spirits as if they had done something heroic! Germans, too, are hopeless; they have no powers of resistance and go hopelessly, shamefully, to pieces as much in public as in private.
The deck was covered with long cane chairs under the awning, and one by one yellow, haggard, feeble figures appeared and collapsed into them, but this took some days; our one lady in the First Class was long of appearing.
We were a curious little community. In the Second Class were few passengers—two Englishmen and two Englishwomen bound for Singapore, and a few others. In the First Class we had Monsignor Coupé, or Coppée, the French Catholic Bishop of German New Guinea; Captain Dunbar, Commander of the German corvette, Moewe (Seagull), which patrols these seas; the distinguished Hungarian naturalist, Professor Biro Lajos (Ludwig Biro); Frau Wolff, wife of a German planter in New Britain; a ​Danish pilot who takes the ship to New Guinea; and King Peter of the French Islands. I represent the British Empire.
What a mixture—a French bishop, German naval captain, Hungarian professor, Danish pilot, German lady, a king, and a Scottish pleasure-pilgrim!—but the lion lay down with the lamb; no one ate any one else, and we are all quite happy and peaceable together. Captain Niedermayer is kindness and consideration itself, all the officers are friendly and pleasant, and to me personally every one is most charming, and I am quite at home. Germans and all their little ways are not strange to me. I appreciate what is good and pleasant in both, and there is much one can appreciate. I am the stranger amongst them, but they make much of me and then I am a Scotsman, not an Englishman, and that makes much difference, as it does amongst many peoples. For it must be remembered that, ere our Scottish King added the Estates of England to his Scottish Estates, whilst England was often at war with some continental State, Scotland was usually on terms of alliance or friendship with that same State. Very close were the bonds that for centuries knit Scotland with France, the Low Countries, Italy, Poland, and even Russia. The Scotsman to this day meets with a different welcome in those lands to what the Englishman does; moreover, he is not so insular as the other, and consequently adapts himself more naturally to the ways and customs of a foreign nation.
The dining-saloon is not large, but we are only a small party. We are waited on by three Chinese stewards from Singapore, and two German stewards. Captain Dunbar has also his bluejacket servant to wait on him—a bright, clean, active German boy. The cooks are also Singapore ​Chinese. The five stewards are really hopeless; the two Germans seem to have no brains at all. One is exactly like a wolf. As I came along the deck one day this one suddenly thrust his head out of the deck cabin window, gave me quite a shock, and made me think I was Little Red Riding Hood—difficult as such a feat was.
These five stewards stand in a row with absolutely blank faces; I ask for something, and the whole five rush out and return five minutes later—to be stormed at by the Captain—having forgotten what they went for. I have got into the way of signalling to Captain Dunbar's boy, who has learned also to read in my eye what I want without my asking for it; so I had to apologise to his master for so making use of him, with the result that this bluejacket is made to do all sorts of things for me, does everything beamingly, and is by way of " taking care of me." It is wonderful the amount of people who feel it necessary to take care of this helpless being, who in reality is very capable of taking care of himself, but does not like to hurt their feelings by showing it. The only time the inscrutable faces of the Chinese stewards light up is when, with an insinuating smile, they offer you "cully and lice," a dish always in favour in hot climates. Why a Chinaman cannot pronounce an "r" I do not know. They reply to everything " Allee litee."
The crew are Malays, so that weare a sort of Noah's Ark—every sort of animal represented. As deck passengers we have Indian coolies, Chinese, Malays, Javanese, South Sea Islanders, and a monkey.
This North German Lloyd boat is heavily subsidised by the German Government, and is run on certain lines. The Captain gets a lump sum down, runs the whole ship on that, paying for ​everything. Anything over the actual expenses is profit for him. He does not, however, stint us in any way, gives us a generous table, and has been kind enough to come to me several times to ask if I am satisfied and to consult my taste in the feeding line, so that I may have what I please. Then the Chinese cooks and I are friends—wise me! They are all grins if I poke my head into their galley and say, " Well, Cookie, you got 'em something nicey for me to-day?" "Alle what you likee," they answer—for be it remembered they are my fellow-subjects from Singapore. The crew get about thirty shillings a month.
The Chinese cooks often make me recall an old picture in Punch or some such paper of a stout old policeman with an astounded face, who is gazing down into an area after signalling to the cook for his daily love-token of chop, or ping," whatever that may be, and is slit-eyed, pig-tailed, grinning Chinaman with "Me am Cookie."
I told these ones that in my family we had a Chinese cook for many, many years, called " I Sing," and that we adored him. He had left his wife in China, and when we frequently suggested that she might have gone off with some other man he always said cheerfully, " Never mind, me getee plenty more."
Going down the passage to my cabin one day, I came on one of the Malay sailor boys on his knees at some one's cabin door, peering through the keyhole. My boot toe caught him exactly on the end of his tail, and you should have seen that boy clap his hand behind and go down the passage a yard at a time. I did not tell, however, and he is duly grateful, if sickly smiles mean gratitude. But, when I see him sitting on the lower deck, it always seems to me he sits sideways; I wonder why? ​This ship, however, is not particularly clean. They cannot help it swarming with tiny white ants, which are everywhere, even on one's plate at dinner. I wage war with them in my cabin. They are all over the white-painted wall, all so fussy and busy, tearing about in long lines intent on some destructive purpose. What it is all about I do not know, but I take care they never " get there." For long they were beyond me, but now I have got them. I go to bed, put out the electric light, and wait. Suddenly I turn it on again and there they are in scores on the wall, scuttering along as hard as they can go. I take a piece of odoriferous yellow soap—some German product—and draw a line in front of them. They abhor it, and start off on another tack—I block them everywhere, and at last they retreat in disorder. Of course I enjoy the smell of the soap also, but I prefer it to the ants.
Then the pillows and mattresses have such an extraordinary odour that I cannot use them. I have complained, been assured they are perfectly clean and that it is only the result of some disinfectant which is sehr gesund in hot weather, and that, as nothing that can be avoided is ever purchased in any British port, no new ones can be got except at Bremen in Germany some months hence. The German Government will fatten and batten on us Free Traders, but endeavours not to let us profit one sixpence by them.
We steamed up the Australian coast outside the Great Barrier Reef, experiencing a great thunderstorm. We made Moreton Island about six o'clock one evening and shipped a pilot. Moreton Bay is full of shifting sandbanks and shoals. We were too late for the shorter entrance and so had to go a long way, the route being two sides of a triangle, the base of which ought to be ​the route—I inspected the chart with great dis-approval.
It was 4 a.m. next morning when we anchored at the wharf at Penankbar—or some such name—on the Brisbane River, and I at once took train for Brisbane for a few hours, there to do some necessary shopping, and to buy new pillows and pillow-cases. The pillows I carried in triumph in my arms on board the Stettin, thinking some one would see the point and take the hint. They did not, however, and were quite indifferent. At 3 p.m. we were off again, and it was goodbye to Australia. The Customs House Officer who boarded us was dead drunk, insisted on lunching with us, drank King Peter's beer, and wanted to save us all trouble in that way. The Germans were maliciously amused with him, but I resented him and literally drove him ashore.
It was, and is, very hot even under the awning, and, clad in white duck clothes, we all lie in long chairs, have countless cool drinks, and I listen to many yarns. The Germans are for ever im gewohnten Tropenschläfchen versunken, but I am not of the sleeping kind, so frequently stir them up. I have big ears, which is the reason, I suppose, people will pour all their confidences into them. Luckily I like to hear what people have to say about themselves—if they be not bores—for every one has something in him of interest, and I have no disdain for all the little vanities and feeblenesses which make people human. When the Captain, or Captain Koch, the Danish pilot, or the other officers come off duty and clean up, they generally make for me with a Wie gehts—furchtbar heiz, nicht wahr? and stretch themselves alongside and become full of reminiscences about the Happy Fatherland and the cool beer in this or that Keller in bygone ​days. They know I understand their beautiful Fatherland and the life there.
Captain Dunbar—or Doonbar as the Germans call it—is of Scottish origin, but very German in all his ways. His ancestors went to America in 1600, and his father and brothers are American, he being the only German of the family. It is curious to find this Scoto-American a German naval captain. He is now bound for Europe, and tells me his brother is in Scotland hunting out the family genealogy, and I think the blood that is thicker than water accounts for his occasional lapses into confidential German communications; but I am sure none of the others here would talk so freely about German desires and aims to other people as they do to me.
Monsignor Coupé, the Bishop—appointed " Vicariat Apostolique" of the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomons, Admiralty Isles and New Guinea, and head of the Sacred Heart Mission—is a very tall, strong, portly, energetic man with a long black beard, and, though French, has little of that nationality about him. The Mission was re-established in New Britain in 1889, but for over a year the New Guinea Co. would not allow them to do anything or interfere with the natives. At last permission came from Berlin, and different spheres were allotted to the Catholic and Protestant Missions. Bishop Coupe was long in British New Guinea, but, as he laughingly said to me, the Protestant missionaries there were too much for him. He has now been seven years in the German sphere, and has just returned from a visit to Europe. The Governor of German New Guinea did not see his way to letting him have what land he desired for his Mission Stations, so in Berlin he, map in hand, interviewed the Foreign Office, talked them over, and got them to ​concede his wishes, they naturally knowing nothing about it.
You see, in Berlin, when they got this new possession, they took the map, altered all the names, ignoring what was due to the discoverers and charters of these lands and seas, and then put dots along the coast-line wherever it looked pretty, and affixed a name to each dot. These now are " ports," and the N.D.L. boat has to call and remain a certain time at each, regardless of any lack of passengers or "trade" being embarked or disembarked. Any one can civilise and colonise a country like that; it is quite easy; merely get a blank map, write down a few names—Frederick Williams, or Johann Charles, or the like—and there you are! New Britain is now Neu Pommern; New Ireland is Neu Mecklenthe mainland colony is Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, and so weiter. Nevertheless, on this boat we call them by their English or original names, for, much to the annoyance of Germans, every one speaks English—it and "pidgin-English" are universal amidst all natives throughout the East. The Malays, Cingalese, and Chinese understand and speak nothing but pidgin-English, so that all orders on the ship and elsewhere have to be given in that dialect.
The Bishop told me he had expended in Berlin 40,000 marks in the purchase of a dynamo and plant for felling, sawing, and moving timber, and he is about to start a brewery, which has created wondering admiration amongst the Germans. He introduced forty head of cattle into New Britain, but the tick killed off most of them. A bull and cow, landed on the same day, caught this disease and died in two weeks on the same day and at the same hour! Most touching and romantic, was it not? First romantic cow ​I ever heard of. Perhaps some one will write an idyllic poem on the subject one day. I trust the Bishop was not engaged in the undignified amusement of “pulling my leg.”
I ask most irritating questions at times, ones that require a definite answer. This is not nice of me, I know but then, you see, I want to know. How do they convert the natives—that is the object of the Mission, I suppose? They “adopt” as many small children as possible, educate them, and teach them agriculture and what they can, and when of age marry them, help to start them in villages with cocoanut trees, a house, cattle, etc. They are obliged to teach these children to read and write German.
Now and again when I hear much laudatory talk over German colonisation the devil prompts me to say, “How much do you pay for a child there?” or How much for a girl?”—not that I mean to buy many to take home with me.
This Frenchman is quite a power amongst the Germans, and they treat him with much deference. They hold their breath as they wonderingly retail how he has introduced electric light at his Mission, and about his brewery and wood-sawing. They had not thought of such things themselves.
Germans are never more flattered than when a Frenchman condescends to them. They cherish a sort of hereditary idea that the French are a distinguished, high-bred, cultured, elegant race. In the Franco-Prussian War they gave France a tremendous beating, one she has never recovered from; their Prussian king was proclaimed German Emperor in the historic halls of Versailles, and the German kings and princes bent before him in homage. Would it be strange if Germany showed symptoms of “swelled head”? Yet for long it was not so. In the German character is a strange ​littleness and meanness—a kleinlichkeit, an inability to recognise anything really and truly great—so at first they did not even recognise their own greatness or what it was they had really done. They were a people with a feeling of humbleness. They had done that mighty thing—brought proud France to the dust—yet somehow no one, least of all those cold, arrogant, haughty British—whom they always call English recognised it, and even the beaten French still considered themselves superior.
The Germans were troubled, self-conscious, shy, but gradually growing resentful, and particularly so towards the “English,” who patronised, snubbed, and looked down on them whilst using their country as a cheap place to live in or to educate their children in. There never was any need of this “humbleness” on the part of Germany; there was too much greatness in the land; she had quite enough to place her on the level of other great nations. Yet for long neither she nor they saw it. She blushed shyly when you condescendingly praised her, burned with pained resentment when you scorned or derided her, and gradually in her people woke up and spread a realisation of their latent power, a knowledge that in them was the possibility of ranking with the greatest nations, and deeper and deeper grew the resentment, the jealous hatred particularly of the arrogant, supercilious “English” who trod on corns all round and rubbed salt into every sore—and bit by bit Germany came to her own.
Now it is another tale. It is her turn. No longer is there any feeling of humility, any consciousness of inferiority; it is just the contrary. It has been instilled into the German people that they are “the salt of the earth,” the great Coming Race, and are no longer to rank even alongside the ​greatest Powers, but are to rise above, conquer, and supplant them. They are educating their people in this idea, and the idea has already grown into an accepted truth. Neither Emperor, Statesman, nor Socialist can now stay it—the German people are awake and eager. Their day is coming—it is near at hand—they see the writing on the wall.
This is a strong race, a slow-thinking, heavy, ponderous people; not easily roused and moved, but once roused, once fired with an idea, their force is not far from being irresistible. Already they see themselves the Successors of the Modern Roman Empire; they point everywhere to the signs of its decline; they illustrate it by the history of that other great Empire; they are growing stronger, prouder, more arrogant, openly aggressive and boastful. Yet they have their limitations; their ardour is easily damped, their aggressiveness checked, their spirit humbled, if you understand them.
The Roman Empire was built and held by the sword—that is not the case with the British Empire. The Germans, like the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, do not realise or understand that now throughout the whole globe is scattered in strong, rich communities the fittest of the British Race, growing in numbers, in pride, and in ambition—full of almost pitying love for their Motherland, ready and eager to stretch forth a protecting and helping hand in any hour of stress that comes to her, but sternly determined to guard and cherish for themselves the great lands they, in but a short space of time, have made into practically independent nations. Herein lies the strength and the weakness of the British Empire.
Prince and People, Soldier and Sailor, Trader and Empire-Builder have alike cried. “Oh, wake up! Wake up, old Motherland”—but yet she ​slumbers and heeds not. Rude indeed may be that awakening, and maybe the day is not far off that it comes. It is a struggle between races, great forces, not between mere countries.
In the Homeland they sit down to their feeble aims and amusements, unseeing and unheeding, wrapped in their insular ignorance, regardless of the restless, ambitious, capable blood flowing from their shores to vivify the lone lands beyond the seas. If they see or notice, “We did it—England did it,” they cry complacently and with smug satisfaction. Would only they would wake up into comprehension as to what has happened, what is happening. This great, huge, unwieldy nation blundered on its way without opposition, almost infallible in its own eyes. Now there is opposition—strong, strenuous opposition—and it is not realised, or where realised, it is with a howl of angry, derisive scorn—How dare the jackal invade the den of the lion and worry, snap, and snarl! But why does the lion allow it? Is she chloroformed, and feels not the treading on her tail? is she suffering from sleeping sickness, or what? It is but a feeble roar when she does roar, and it remains a feeble roar alone the stillness in the forest is no longer that of fear and awe, it is that of a derisive pity. “Wake up, mother!” cry unceasingly the lion cubs but she heeds not, is peevish, fretful, bewildered; is she afraid?
In their handsome Gothic Club by the Thames the representatives of the people play about with catch phrases and tiresome closures, commissions, regulations, and the like, imagining because they write M.P. after their names that they are Wise Men. They are Conservatives, Radicals, Socialists, Labour Members, and the like, but they are not Statesmen, Empire-Builders, or Patriots—that they most certainly are not. Perhaps some bad ​drainage or effluvium from the “dear old dirty Thames” affects them—something is wrong with that club anyway. Outside its walls the people are playing with politics and visionary dreams, driving, leading, or influencing into a seething pond of bewildering waters the members of that club, who are struggling and splashing to get out of it, with no idea how to do it or where to land.
The German people for long were feebly irritated and distressed at the very name of German colonies, at the very idea of being “a World Power”—it made them “nervous”; they hated trouble, were peaceable, and liked to sit down, drink beer, ruminate, and argue incessantly over England und die Englander. They had risen to a man when needed with a strong, true burst of real patriotism, fought for their country, and won. They wanted peace, and to get back into their own quiet old stodgy, peaceable ways. I remember long ago how somehow I got amongst some of their farseeing ones bent on founding new German lands, rebellious at seeing millions of Germans flocking to America and Australia to be for ever lost to their Fatherland. They wrote, spoke, urged, entreated, but no one listened.
It was all very interesting, but Bismarck would not have it. Once they wrote me: “Find us a London millionaire to come and invest his money in our pretty cocoanut plantations in one of our new African paradises, and we promise you a decoration, a pretty ribbon and order.” Of course it was more explicit than that; but whilst I was not quite sure if the decoration was for me or the millionaire, I could only say it was not good enough for either, and most certainly it would not be our money that developed any German land. Also did I find a millionaire and could do it I would ​keep him for my own use, and see that he invested in my “cocoanut plantations.”
I admired and sympathised with their far-seeing, most natural, and patriotic aims—the most clever and far-seeing of all was a lady and my good friend; but it was entirely their own business. Of course they would not listen to the lady—German women should sit down at home, wash the babies, and look after the kitchen and such things—Empire-building is not in their line.
Now it is all another tale. The German people are awake, and a simple little telegram of a few words did it all. A telegram roused a mighty race into fiercely patriotic activity, into jealous rage against a neighbour who scorned them, and into a strong determination to checkmate and browbeat that neighbour whenever and wherever possible. They lost control of themselves, gave themselves away hopelessly, and because they were not justified, because that neighbour was not humbled and cast down into the dust, there rose and spread amongst the whole Germanic Race a determination to get even with the proud Islanders by every means in their power. If colonies were good for nothing else, at least they would be useful as spots from which to irritate and pin-prick the rival.
In far lands under another flag dwelt many Germans, peaceable, contented, respected subjects of that flag; forgetting their Homeland, or born under other skies, growing up in freedom and independence, scorning the tales told by the old of the heavy military and petty police tyranny of their German days; but then came that telegram—the people around remembered these were Germans; made them play “God save the Queen” from morning to night! This last roused them to say, “After all we are Germans; why should ​not this land, other lands, all lands, be ours? Why need we build empires for others—why should we not be the masters?"
So the German spirit awoke—it shows no sign of sleeping again.
The world owes much to the German Race in many ways, and its place always has and always must be a great one; but it is not the only great race by any means; happily for the world it is not so. The widely different human races leaven and balance each other. What a terrible, insufferable world it would be if it was all British, or all German! Fancy having no other nation to grumble at, to revile or scorn—it is not to be thought of! If the British won every event in the Olympic Games, what would be the use of holding them at all? It is good to be beaten and so stimulated at times. Besides, it is all so amusing, this game of politics, it is so interesting to push the figures on the board about and see which gains an advantage here or there; there would be no “playing the game” if one piece won every time. The nation that is too fond of talking about “the sporting thing to do” is beginning to have unpleasant ideas as to what “the sporting thing” is, and is by no means exciting universal admiration when it says, “It isn't cricket !”—it is thinking a great deal too much about the gate-money.
Daring spirit, high ideals, the love of surmounting difficulties, the desire to be first, but fairly first, the spirit that will not be beaten, the steady endurance that leads to the overcoming, and trifles of that sort, are really not so useless and ridiculous after all; they do pay, they win empires when you realise them.
I lie in my long chair and see the seas rushing past and think of these things. Then I tumble to earth, or the deck, again, for it is feeding-time​—it always is feeding-time on a ship, and a time always welcome. The early coffee or tea, the hearty breakfast, the “something” at eleven to support your feeble frame, the substantial luncheon, the afternoon tea, the important dinner, and the final sandwich before bed—to say nothing of the cool drinks between times—keep one at least from fainting, and not only serve to pass the time but occupy all the time; what really selfish greedy animals we are! I include myself, for I never miss any of these things and have no call to scorn them. The truth is I am very lazy, comfortable, and tolerably happy here—bored of course frequently; but I was born bored, and people at present are too kind to me to give me just cause for grumbling, and it is too hot to invent grievances. This is our little world, this boat out here on the Stille Meer; we are all more or less human, and don’t aspire to be angels as yet, especially in such hot weather.
This reference to angels brings me back to the Bishop—not that I can see any great resemblance between bishops and angels; but somehow one has an idea that some bishops became saints, and saints and angels move, I believe, in the same set, and go in for the same fashion in haloes, - though they don’t look now as they did when Cimabue, Botticelli, and the rest pretended to know so much about them. I meet so few, it is difficult to judge. Anyway the Bishop, though he is a good man, does not look the least like an angel, as he has got a long black beard, and I never saw an angel with that, did you? He tells me many interesting things about this land we are approaching, and I can see has a quite worldly satisfaction at having outwitted the Governor and got all the land he wants. I have heard stories—in Sydney—that the ​Germans are very cruel and brutal to the natives; but the Bishop denies it, and says employers are only allowed to give obstreperous natives ten lashes, no more—a good deal no doubt depends on the lashes.
The Professor is also interesting, and has shown me many publications of the Buda-Pesth National Museum—is delighted I have seen that magnificent city; but as these books are in Hungarian, Latin, and other languages, I have not read them. Many plants and insects bearing his name were discovered by him—two butterflies discovered by him, the Queen Victoria and the Empress Elizabeth, are very fine. He is enthusiastic about his work, lived for a time in a clearing in the forest in New Guinea, and has lived with King Peter at Petershafen on Deslacs Island, where he is now returning. He waxed enthusiastic over the great and whole-hearted contributions to Science of my old friend Baron von Mueller, the Explorer and Government Botanist of Victoria, and it would have done the poor old Baron’s heart good to hear how his work was known and appreciated in Hungary as elsewhere. I remember once in Rome, when the Marchese Vitelleschi, President of the Geographical Society there, invited me to the rooms of the Society, the Secretary had in expectation of my coming collected an enormous pile of the Baron’s works, and was quite flushed with excitement to meet any one who had known him.
To Professor Ludwig Biro the dangers from the natives were as nothing; I am sure he would willingly have sacrificed his life in pursuit of some rare plant or insect. He told me a long tale about a curious character who has been living on one of the islands, but who is not there just now, so I cannot have the honour of meeting ​him. This man was a clever surgeon in the French navy, did something—embezzled money I think—and was sent to New Caledonia as a convict. Though his time was up he managed to escape in a small boat with four others. After a time they were picked up by a trading vessel. Two died, but this one was brought to an island, where he became a trader. He lost his right eye and arm in an explosion. He lived on an island with quite a harem of women, and was accused of having murdered his wife, or one of them. The natives are terrified of him. Many of the natives of New Hanover and New Ireland have been on Queensland plantations, and since then hate and fear white men.
Frau Wolff, our lady passenger, is a stout German lady who feels the heat much, a goodnatured, homely person; but she is of importance in New Guinea, because she is the principal white woman, and, so far as I can make out, there are only two other white women, as the other ladies are partly Samoan. Her husband has a plantation of his own inland, and so is an actual colonist, not an official.
There are also about eight German laybrothers going out to the Bishop’s Mission. They are very simple, very fond of getting sea-sick at every ripple on the sea, and somewhat childish in their ways. Perhaps they may convert natives, but certainly no one else. But they are going to do work which places their lives daily, even hourly, in peril, and are facing the knowledge cheerfully. In addition there are several Sisters, also bound for the Mission, some of whom are Australians. There are two native New Guinea boys whom the Bishop took to Germany as specimens of his work. They are very amusing and somewhat impudent, and if they are good ​examples of the converted native, the fewer the better, say I. [In 1904 Father Rascher, four Brothers, and five of the good Sisters were all massacred by the natives at the new mission station of St. Paul's.Their bodies, however, were left untouched.]
The most amusing of my fellow-passengers is, however, King Peter, who is a great character, and a great friend of mine. Not being a Society personage, I number very few kings amongst my friends. I don't meet them about much, so I sup- pose we move in different sets. I remember――― whose ambition it was to be taken for " a smart woman in a smart set," saying once, " Yes, Queen Victoria-no doubt a very noble, good woman and all that, don't you know--but one never meets her about, and she is not a bit in the smart set." Anyway, I don't know many kings-- which, I am sure, is a great pity for the kings-- and so feel I have " riz " with having this one as a daily companion. I always wanted to be a king myself, but a real one that could cut off heads. It must be so beautiful if any one bores you to be able to say " Kopf ab! " and there is no more about it. The good kings do not interest me; I like the ones who " wade through seas of blood to a Throne " and have no consciences. None of them can possibly, like me, have a strain of dour Scottish Covenanting blood in their veins, which makes itself felt on the most inappropriate occasions and spoils everything. It ought to be a Royal recipe for fighty kings to inject some of this Covenanting blood into their veins now and again; there would be little frivolity left in them. My fortune has been told several times, and I am always promised " a crown," but whether it is a Royal crown or five shillings, it has not arrived yet. I am, however, still waiting. ​ King Peter, however, has no Covenanting blood. He is a Dane by birth, but now a naturalised German subject. I think he was originally working at Sydney, and somehow drifted to New Guinea and entered the service of the New Guinea Company. He eventually became the practical owner of the fine group called the French Islands off the coast of New Guinea, marrying a native lady who had some claim to their sovereignty, and he lives now in one of them, Deslacs, at Petershafen-called after him-where there is a fine harbour. He trades in copra and bêche-de-mer, etc., has several Europeans in his employment and many "tame" natives. His name is Peter Hansen, but he is universally known as King Peter. He has now been to Sydney, where he purchased a small steamboat, the Mato, in which he will return to Deslacs Island when she reaches New Guinea. He has shown me the photograph of this Royal yacht of his of which he is very proud. He has also a flag of his own which he hoists whenever he passes the plantation of a rival of his on New Britain. The flag is a nigger standing on a cocoanut with his thumb at his nose and his fingers outspread in a vulgar manner sometimes indulged in by schoolboys and the like. King Peter has confided all his history, hopes, and ambitions to me, and is most pressing in his invitation to me to go and stay a long time with him at Deslacs Island. I have promised to do so "in tyme coming."
King Peter is rich, or would be if he realised. The others tell me he must be worth several thou- sands a year. The natural growth of his islands is cocoanut. The natives, who have their own plantations and rights of ownership in the land, bring all the copra to him; he buys it for a few red beads, paint, cloth, and such "trade"; a steam​boat comes out from the mainland and he sells it at £7 a ton on the spot—the profit, therefore, is great; with his own yacht, the Mato, he expects to do wonders. He is naturally regarded jealously by the Germans who do not own Royal yachts. His yarns about his islands are unceasing. They are not actually his; I suppose he leases some of them—there are seven beautiful islands—for he tells me he wants to buy the splendid one Merité for £75.
About a ton of copra goes to the acre, and the trees come to maturity in eight years. [Copra now sells at from £13 to £25 a ton.] The trees are usually planted 30 feet apart, but now some plant them closely. Labour costs £10 a month. From 6000 to 7000 cocoanuts go to a ton of copra, and each tree produces 50 or 60 nuts a year. King Peter adopts girl children very young, trains them to work, and, when old enough, marries them to “wild” young natives who are thus enticed into working for him! He has brought back a new stock of “trade” from Sydney—beads, cloth, mechanical toys, concertinas, and the like. These big ears of mine, which appear so attractive to others that they must pour things into them, have the misfortune—or merit—of letting much pass out the other side, so that my memory does not retain all these yarns. Even if it did, I could not tell them again; aber “Leben und leben lassen” is a saying always to be remembered.
S.S. Stettin, THE STILLE MEER, Dec. 1900.
It is very hot—swelteringly so.
Pyjamas seem the most comfortable wear, yet we conform to public opinion, and if in white are still dressy. The Captain and officers are very ​smart in white uniforms with gold-braided white caps and tunics.
From our high deck I spend a long time daily looking down on the doings of the deck passengers, who include Indian coolies, Chinese, Japanese, Cingalese, Kanakas, Malays, and Javanese. In this hot weather they all sleep and live on deck under the awning. The making of toilets in the morning is wonderful. The Javanese and Malay women are very good-looking and attractive, and are ve neat and clean. They wear the Sarong, a checked, coloured cloth wrapped round the legs, and a white dressing jacket. They use, even on deck, pretty silken cushions and elaborately frilled white pillows. All these mixed natives are really well behaved, and very courteous, helpful, and polite to one another, though there have been some rows which nearly ended in knife business. The monkey, which pervades the place, goes the round every morning and cleans all their heads! This interesting operation always takes place in public. There is a Chinese woman on board, but she never leaves her cabin—at least, I have never seen her. The Chinese women, you know, are very gentle, good, and refined—the glory of their land.
We have another “personage”’ who cannot be ignored. This is a large white cockatoo with a yellow crest—the beloved property of the first officer. Captain Niedermayer is for ever giving stern orders that it must on no account be allowed on our deck. Nothing, however, will keep it away, so he pretends not’ to see it. Not that it can really be ignored, as it is most consequential, full of character, and rather uncanny. It tyrannises over us all. I never saw so much and such varying expression on a bird’s face before. It reminds me somehow of the expression on the
* HUNSTEIN'S BIRD OF PARADISE (Diphyllodes hunsteini), S.E. NEW GUINEA.
* TWELVE-WIRED BIRD OF PARADISE
* BENNET'S BIRD OF PARADISE (Drepanornis cervinicanda), S.E. NEW GUINEA.
* KING BIRD OF PARADISE (Cicinnurus regius), AREI ISLES.
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subject, and is not shy of expressing them, and, of course, talks “pidgin-English,” with German or Malay words thrown in at random to suit the occasion. The yarns that bird has told me! He has seen much of life, does not think much of human nature, but is determined to get as much enjoyment, of a sort, as possible. He is tied up with chains or ropes to an iron stanchion or the skylight or something, but no bonds can keep him. He gnaws through ropes, demolishes iron chains, digs holes in the deck, and is a perfect fiend of mischief. Once free, you see him stalking along the deck chattering and chuckling to himself, saying thunderous things in different languages and looking exactly like one of those stout, important, white-waistcoated old men who are “‘ something in the city.”
This bird makes straight for some one, generally for me, never goes round anything, but climbs laboriously over everything in the way, up one side of a chair, over it, and down the other side, even if a dozen chairs are on the route. Once it reaches you it climbs up and insists upon your scratching its poll and under its wing for hours without ceasing. An attempt to leave off, or a hasty movement of your hand, and it turns instantly and rends you. It has the most powerful beak, and we are all terrified of it as it hurts considerably, and I am so tattered and torn that I shall have to go into hospital to be mended. It does not really like me; I feel sure it despises me, but it is quite aware I have a terrified respect for it and have to go on scratching for hours. It is quite a usual thing to see every one stretched out in silence, overcome by heat and inertia—then a sudden yell—some one has forgotten to go on scratching. If you lean over the side of the ship ​“Pretty Cocky,” as we sarcastically call it, attacks the calves of your legs. With all his talk and orders I have seen the Captain trying to curry favour with it.
It is generally very warm and close, yet we have had sometimes very heavy seas, with waves breaking over us. We passed Rossell and Adele Isles, part of the Louisiade Archipelago off the south-east coast of British New Guinea. Rossell Isle is large and very hilly. A ship carrying Chinese to Cooktown in Queensland was once wrecked on it. Three hundred Chinese were landed on the island. When, later, a steamer was sent to fetch them away, only three survivors were found, roaming about the rocks and quite mad, the natives having killed and eaten the rest. Adele Isle has great cocoanut palm groves.
The Germans call this sea the Stille Meer, and it generally bears out its title, and some days have been exquisite. Passing the Lauchlan Isles, we, however, had a very sudden squall of wind and rain. These Lauchlan Isles are a low-lying group covered with palms. A friend of King Peter's lived on them for a time, and at present they are inhabited by three white men, copra-growing. The natives are said to be a fine race. I asked the Captain why he did not call at these islands and get the trade, but he said it was not their wish or intention to be of any use to any British possession.
Copra is, as you doubtless know, cocoanut cut up in strips. It is packed in bags and sent to Europe, where it is pressed for oil, the refuse making good manure. King Peter told me he lately got £10, 10s, a ton for 300 tons of his.
The ninth day out from Sydney, about midday, we came in sight of the high, bold mountains ​of New Britain (Neu Pommern) on one side and New Ireland (Neu Mecklenburg) on the other. These mountains seem very high, and when first seen were wreathed in clouds round their bases. Between them is St. George's Channel and the Duke of York Islands. Quite suddenly we entered the zone of a monsoon, and had a terrific gale with heavy squalls of wind and rain. This woke us up—it was no longer the Stille Meer—and I revelled in it, as I love a great gale at sea beyond anything. A monsoon is no joke though, and a time it was terrific and left us breathless; we were buffeted about and wondered where we would be driven to. Even as we entered St. George's Channel and approached the Duke of York Islands, behind which appeared the volcanoes known as the Mother and Daughters, we were still in the thick of the storm, which came at us from every direction at once. As darkness came on I wondered what island we should go ashore on, but did not much care. My spirits always become exuberant in a real gale, and I love the thought of the brave little ship battling and toiling in this fierce turmoil of wind and sea. The blood of my Viking ancestors, of the old jarls of Orkney and of Iceland, is strong in me at such times. I look back with unalloyed delight to a fierce gale off Iceland, where we lay-to and kept our nose to it, and which drove me wild. How much there is in blood after all! I realised there the brave and daring spirit of those old Scandinavian jarls which made them face such storms in their small craft.
Here enjoyment was tempered by the horrible mugginess of the air and the demoniacal way the winds swept round us and at us from every direction—but a monsoon is a riot of devils. Nevertheless, we did not think of missing our ​dinner, though it was a topsy-turvy meal and the “cully and lice” went everywhere but down our throats.
In the Duke of York group is Mioko, a beautiful spot and the oldest settlement of the Germans. The island is one mile long by three-quarters broad, and has a very good station on it. It con- tains a graveyard full of the graves of murdered white men. A notable feature is a huge tree, 150 feet high, which is a landmark for miles. On an adjacent isle is an English Wesleyan mission station. It is said there is a small fish here you may prick yourself with, and if you do you may die with symptoms like snake bite. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It is probably the stone fish. Now I will tell you a story.
Once when Captain Niedermayer was in the throes of a monsoon or typhoon he sighted a raft bearing some Chinese. They seemed doomed to destruction, but somehow he managed to rescue them, and took them to Singapore, the port he was bound for, and he thought no more of the incident. One day, whilst in dock at Singapore, he saw a number of Chinese come on board and begin decorating the Stettin with lanterns, coloured strips of paper, tinsel, and other Chinese frivolities accompanied by the firing of squibs. Naturally he asked what it meant, and found that the Chinese of Singapore were so honouring him because he had saved the lives of their compatriots, and they forthwith presented him with an address expressing their thanks and deep gratitude—yet people say they have no gratitude, just as they malign them in many other ways. People never take the Chinese seriously, so Captain Niedermayer was more amused than touched.
What was his surprise, however, a few weeks after this, to receive suddenly an autograph letter ​of thanks and praise from the Emperor William, commending him for his humanity and bravery and for so keeping up the German name! Accompanying it was a magnificent gold watch with an inscription!
How did the Emperor know of such an incident, and so soon? His eye and his arm are far-reaching. Nothing escapes him, and they tell me he knows get be that goes on in the N.D.L. Service, and takes a personal interest in it all. How stimulating and encouraging it is to his far- away subjects to know he is with them, as it were, wherever they are, ready, and the first to reward and praise them if they do anything to foster the honour and interest of his empire! How wise this is! It does not affect the recipient of the favour alone, it stimulates and encourages all his subjects to do well, and no wonder they work together for their Fatherland. One knows of many a wire-pulling, intriguing nobody in our Government employ at home, who is paid, too, for his badly done work, who gets titles and honours for God knows what, simply because his party is paying him by recommending his name to the King—but that affects the recipient alone and passes unnoticed by the people in general. Queen Victoria and our late and present King and Queen often did, and do, personal things to recognise and honour some one, and how doubly grateful that is to the favoured one! It makes them realise that the King and Queen belong to every one and are in touch with every one, and wakens in them feelings of real attachment and devotion.
The German Emperor has this clever instinct of personally and unsolicited seeking out those it is useful for patriotic reasons to reward, people who perhaps have never seen him and never dream he can hear of them. It seems as spontaneous as ​it is well thought out. It is so stimulating and encouraging to people to know that, though what they may do may escape public notice or recognition, yet their Emperor, who belongs to each one individually, may hear of it and appreciate it. Every German in the East heard of and took note of this little incident connected with Captain Niedermayer, and you may be sure it stirred them up to do anything they could to foster their country’s interests. No one cares what those toadying, place-hunting brewers, grocers, and the like at home get—they give out of their millions a sum here or there to advertise themselves for reasons of personal ambition, and get paid in return by a baronetcy or a C.B. or something. That is all very well; it no doubt encourages the next rich aspirant to go and do likewise, but it has nothing to do with one’s country or stimulating people to patriotic enterprise.
They cannot understand how the Emperor knows of or hears of the things he. does out here in the East, but undoubtedly he knows well when and where to give the vivifying touch that is necessary and so doubly useful and welcome when it comes unsolicited.
At nine o’clock at night, after a struggle, we made the anchorage at Herbertshohe, the settle- ment on the great island of New Britain, which with New Ireland, New Hanover, and many others forms the Bismarck Archipelago. Little was to be seen at that hour, as the gale continued and the Stettin tore at and struggled with her anchors and see-sawed about like a madthing. Though not the mainland, actual New Guinea, these islands are part of that land, and I felt with joy that I had at last accomplished one of the desires of my life, and when daylight came would set eyes on the
[Photo, Kerry, Sydney.
BRITISH NEW GUINEA CHIEFS.
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morning!
HERBERTSHÖHE, NEW BRITAIN, December 1900.
When I rose in the morning I hastened on deck to see what this new land was like. The gale still continued in heavy squalls alternating with quiescent lulls, the dying throes of the great monsoon. There was a very heavy swell and a tumultuous surf. It was a beautiful scene. A great mass of green cocoanut palms bordered the high green bank which descended steeply to the surf-beaten shore, and hills of considerable height formed a background. Amongst the palms a few wooden houses, looking neat and pretty from the ship, but somewhat primitive, appeared irregularly, and at one end, some distance from what was actually Herbertshöhe, rose the large Catholic churchsurroundedby the many wooden-verandahed buildings of the Mission. The church appeared to be a most substantial, almost imposing, building of stone—in reality it is of wood and corrugated iron painted in imitation of stone.
We have come through the worst monsoon that has been known for over seven years. The damage it has done has been great. The small piers have all been wrecked, the boats dashed ashore and carried by the wind inland in a shattered condition, and the small steamboat belonging to the Mission is also ashore. The settlement has been badly selected, and is open to every storm. It is, however, a beautiful spot.
Such boats as could manage it were soon battling through the surf to the Stettin, the arrival of which with the mails is a great event. As they approached, the occupants cried shrilly, ​“Was für Bier haben sie?” and their mouths were all open in anticipation of long drinks at new, cool beer. The second question as they ered the gangway was, “Who is this stupid Englishman you have on board?”—the words “stupid” and “Englishman” are always used by Germans together. The “dummer Englander” himself met them all at the head of the gangway with an amused smile, and how very foolish they did look! Ina little while they were asking to be presented.
You see, I had the pull on all these Germans; I knew more parts of their Homeland than they did themselves. I had lived among or known some of their countrymen whose names were very familiar to them, but whom they could not easily meet or know, and a person who had talked with the great von Moltke was in their eyes no mere “stupid Englishman.” Had I not drunk my beer in the Hofbrauerei at München, in Auer- bach’s Keller in Leipzig, in the Stalle in Koln; with students in Heidelberg and Bonn, with cavalry officers in the Reitschule at Hanover, or in the Café Robby there? Had I not dined at Dressels in Unter den Linden and the countless beer gardens of Berlin; hobnobbed with the peasants through- out a whole winter in the Bavarian Alps, known something of the life of Schloss and Dorf, and were not their customs and ways very well known to me? Their prejudices vanish when they know you understand them. Then I have seen colonies grow and develop under my eyes, and have a right to express an opinion on how it is done. My valuable opinions have already been sought on various things here, and, of course, I graciously give them, whether I know anything about the matter or not! But at present I am too pleased and interested to be as scornful and sarcastic as ​my nationality requires over the endeavours of Germany to found a colony, and people are much too amiable and kind to me to make it possible for me to be patriotically nasty. They are so anxious one should be pleased and admire all they have done, and in this hot weather it saves trouble to be amiable and interested—and I am genuinely interested, for the colonisation of a new land engages my sympathies too sincerely to let me care whose land it is. It seems to me it must be one of the finest and most fascinating of positions to have the power to create a great deal out of untouched Nature. The worst is, the grain of salt one must apply to all tales is a large one here.
On a height above the—well, the few wooden bungalows and sheds is the house of the Governor of all these German possessions, Herr von Bennigsen, son of the well-known statesman of that name. I remembered meeting his distinguished father many years ago in Hanover. He, the Governor, however, resides in a four-roomed house lower down, which also serves as Government Buildings. [Dr. Hahl is now Governor, and has about ninety officials under him in the German Protectorate.] The new Government House, a wooden bungalow of a few rooms, was made in Germany and shipped out. When it got to Singapore only half of it, and a builder shipped with it, could be taken by the Stettin, and the other half had to lie in Singapore for some months till the Stettin returned for it. The wood—quite unsuitable for the climate—was all warped and strained, and now that at last they have got it up the white ants are going to eat it down. Here is the most magnificent timber in the world, and quantities of it; but the Wise Men of Berlin knew better than the French bishop, and never ​thought of doing what he has done in using the natural advantages of this land itself. All this is feverishly and apologetically retailed to me. I tell them there are Wise Men in London capable of the same absurdities, and that consoles them. It is a most natural grievance here that Berlin must have a say in every trifle, but for the present it cannot well be otherwise. The Governor’s small steam vessel lay near us. He had just returned from a visit to the remote Carolines, of which he is also Governor, though no doubt in Berlin they think it is but an hour or two across in a small boat, they look so near on the map.
The Bishop was exceedingly put out at seeing his steamboat ashore. Then the Governor’s boat went to pull it off, though it dared not approach too near the surf, and Captain Niedermayer dared not risk the Stettin in aiding. A long hawser was let out and affixed to the Mission boat, and after strenuous efforts it was at last launched and towed out into deep water. Then it was found that they had placed only one native on board, who either did not understand or was unable to obey the orders yelled at him to let go the anchor; so, as both boats began to drift ashore, the Captain of the Governor’s boat in disgust cast off the hawser and steamed out to safety, whilst the poor Bishop—who, whilst this was fee on, was not the least like a bishop in language or manner—had the mortification of seeing his prized vessel again go ashore broadside and come a wreck before his eyes. All this was very exciting, and the Bishop had all our sympathy. Then at the Mission a gun was fired, a flag hoisted, and the people of the Mission— three hundred of them—all in gala attire, which, in the case of the men, meant merely a red loin- cloth, were seen pouring down the steep bank ​to the shore. A large boat, manned by many natives, was launched and after much difficulty approached the Stettin.
Then began an exciting scene. The swell was so heavy that the boat was dashed high up against the gangway, and then receded many yards with a rush. It needed agile limbs, a steady head and nerve to step in at the right moment as it was dashed towards the ship. The Bishop, absolutely furious, got in all right, but his eight followers were terrified, had not courage for the attempt, and clung frantically to the gangway, whilst wave after wave dashed over them. They were in actual danger and might easily have been washed away, but I regret to say so comical was the scene that we on the ship were speechless with laughter. The poor men had not sense enough left to ascend the gangway, but clung on to it desperately at the bottom, dashed about by every wave. At last, in disgust, the Bishop went off alone, and we watched his progress to the shore. Twice his boat was overwhelmed by the surf, but natives rushed into the water and hauled it to safety by main force, and we saw the Bishop, after a very brief greeting to his flock, striding off along the shore. The Mission Brethren were at last also embarked all upside down, and when they reached the surf were helpless, and wave after wave broke over them, they having a near shave of being drowned. From the ship it looked very funny indeed: there are always different ways of viewing things. Sister Amigunda, Sister Ludwina, and the other Sisters had been ungallantly left behind to shift for themselves, so when the boat came back for them one of the officers and I rushed to the gangway to assist, but were not needed. Headed by the two Australian Sisters they all walked calmly and ​coolly down the gangway, waited for the critical moment, and stepped in safely. Then, when they approached the surf, we saw one stand up directing and encouraging the rowers, and they passed magnificently and safely to the shore, whilst we on the ship cheered, though they could not hear us.
Amongst those who came on board were Mr. Forsayth, Herr Walin, and others.
When the Germans took possession of their part of New Guinea and its adjacent isles, they found installed in New Britain a half-caste American-Samoan family who had made large plantations at Ralum, in New Britain, and elsewhere. Of the two daughters of this family, offspring of an American father and a Samoan mother, one, Emma, married an American, Mr. Forsayth, and the other married a German, Mr. Parkinson. Mrs. Forsayth, as she then was, was the practical owner of a fine stretch of country. The Germans confirmed them in all their rights, as also in rights they claimed inland and over some islands. Later, after her first husband's death, Mrs. Forsayth married a German, Herr Kolbe, but he is merely Prince Consort, as Frau Kolbe—who is universally known as Queen Emma—with her son, Mr. Forsayth, and her connections the Parkinsons, manages the large Ralum estate, a store, and all the other plantations they own, herself. The son, Forsayth, married a lady with Samoan blood in her, so that the whole family is of mixed blood; but the Samoans being a handsome and a fine race there is little to regret in that. Queen Emma, all her connections, and all in her employment speak English, and as Ralum is near Herbertshöhe, and extends along the west sea frontage for a long distance, the Germans eventually found they were scarce masters in their own land, and they do not like at all that this ​important family should persist in using the English language.
It is one of the great German ideas to force their language on all natives throughout the south seas, and to so kill all British influence. In all the schools reading and writing in German is compulsory, and the Germans are most scornful about the “pidgin-English”—the universal trade-tongue of all natives everywhere. They want the English Wesleyan missionaries on some islands to learn and teach German. The natives, hot only on every different island, but almost in every village, have different dialects, so that they do not understand each other, and must use one language to communicate with each other and with the white people, and that is pidgin-English.
They call a person's head a cocoanut and bestow names on the whites which they deem suitable, but which at times are not too complimentary. Hence they call the Governor, Herr von Bennigsen, “big fellow master cocoanut belong him no top grass,” in reference to His Excellency's baldness.
One of the Stettin officers they call “short man, big belly”! Of course every important man is “big fellow master,” and a woman is always, as in Australia, “Mary.” They speak of one of themselves when clothed as “white fellow black man.” But since they are all to learn and speak German, the poor things must no longer call the Stettin a “big war-canoe,” but a “Dreitausendtonnendampfer,” which will cure cannibalism, as their jaws will soon wear out.
I remember once sitting in the hall of a German hotel where two old English spinsters were busy with their knitting. An American girl with a young man came in they looked at her and sniffed. Suddenly the young lady walked up to the time​table on the wall and said in an emphatic way, “We must look up that Dampfschiff” (steam-boat). The old ladies turned on each other with a horrified start, “What dreadful language these awful Americans use!"
King Peter is not friendly with Queen Emma, and particularly with her son, Mr. Forsayth, and it is when passing the house of the latter that he hoists his flag of the nigger standing on the cocoanut. King Peter has a very natural pride in the success he has attained and his position as actual king of a whole group of beautiful islands; but Queen Emma is the most important person in German New Guinea, as, besides the great plantations, she owns quite a fleet of schooners and other craft for trading purposes, and has over a thousand people in her employment, so that others have cause to be jealous.
Trade with the natives is all done with goods—beads, cloth, paint, and various things, and the native money—cowrie shells strung on fibre and worth so much a fathom; but German money, adorned with a bird of paradise, has been introduced and is eventually to come into universal use. It will be long ere the natives understand it.
The native tribes inhabiting the different territories and islands, and, as I said, even villages, differ in looks, customs, and language, so that there are many dialects or languages. Some are more Polynesian than Papuan in looks, but, speaking generally, the Papuans are a very fine race, well built and fine featured. They vary in colour, some being dark brown and others much more fair. The girls when young are tolerably attractive, but become wrinkled old women at an early age, and a really old woman is a terrible-looking old hag, generally skinny with a protruding stomach and long, hanging breasts. The men, however, ​are sometimes quite handsome and most dignified in bearing. They disfigure themselves in various ways, according to the local fashion, with tattoo-ing, painting in extraordinary manner face and body in colours, enlarging the ear-lobes to such a size that they hang down to the shoulders, wearing all sorts of things in their ears and noses. The women wear bunchy grass petticoats, a girdle of leaves, a wisp of cloth, or nothing at all, except, of course, their ornaments; the men, a wisp of cloth, a shell, the string costume—a piece of string passed round the waist and between the legs—or are absolutely nude. They too, however, wear ornaments of various sorts, and often of great interest and beauty, in the way of head adornments, armlets, anklets, breast ornaments, and ear ornaments. Sometimes they carry their pipe and other things in the ear or under the armlet. They all appear, especially when nude, quite suitably dressed. In fact, though really nude they never appear so, as it seems quite natural and right. Missionaries, with the idea of Christianising or civilising them, sometimes compel them to go half or fully dressed. The result is that they at once contract all sorts of diseases and die off by the score of pulmonary complaints. It is difficult to explain, but numbers of nude natives seem so naturally and suitably dressed that you never realise they are not, and the only immodesty or indecency there is about it is in the minds of those who think otherwise. They have no feeling of shame, for they know of no reason they should feel any, nor is there any.
When the men get European clothes they wear only part at a time, and that generally on the head. A nude native with a hat, or some garment wrapped round his head, is somewhat ridiculous, and when they wear a shirt they look simply ​ludicrous. A willow-pattern plate, covered with carved tortoiseshell, is a conspicuous and ornamental breastplate. The hair has many ornaments—shells, feathers, and red hibiscus flowers—and they often stick a flower in their armlet as well. They are very fond of strong scents, not always appreciated by others. They wear also in the hair combs and head scratchers. In painting and tattooing they now get new designs from coloured calicoes. As to the hair, it is sometimes like a mop in little ringlets, sometimes like a negro's, sometimes combed out in a frizzy mass. It is often stained light brown, or yellow, or red, with lime, and sometimes it even approaches the extraordinary colour of magenta. Their musical instruments are flutes, pandean pipes, and the drum, a hollowed-out wooden arrangement, which they beat to distraction. They are fond also of jews' harps, and the concertina is coming into fashion.
They all carry a small net bag over the shoulder, with their lime-pot and betel-nut. The latter is the fruit of a palm, is, with the lime, hot and nasty, and makes the teeth and gums red or quite black.
Their food is yams, bread-fruit, taro,—a root like a turnip,—sago, cocoanuts, canary nuts, and so on, besides which they have plantains and bananas. There are, I believe, about fifty different sorts of bananas in New Britain. Various things of this kind are placed in a wooden bowl, mashed together, and hot stones dropped in to boil the water. They then cover it with layers of leaves, which retain the heat, and it is soon cooked. Mashed taro, covered with
[Photo, Kerry, Sydney.
NATIVES OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA.
To face page 108.
The women bring these fruits and roots to market in baskets slung on their back by a band across their foreheads. A young pig costs more to buy than a young girl. [What do the “suffer-it-yets” think of that?] Smart women in New Guinea do not go in for Pekinese or other little wheezers, the fashion with them is young pigs. These they nurse tenderly, and such a thing as a woman suckling a pig has been seen! The young girls sow their wild oats before marriage and carry on with whom they please, and “belong all boys.” After marriage they become the property of their husbands. If one man takes away another’s wife, of course there is a row, but it generally ends in his paying for her. The old women have a great deal to say in matters; their weapon is the universal one of woman—the tongue. The young men have to go through all sorts of tomfoolery when they attain puberty, and there are many extraordinary and strict customs which must be obeyed.
The sago palm supplies thatch for their houses, ivory-nuts, and the sago they are so fond of. The trees in some places, especially high and dry ones, attain to 60 or 70 feet high. The tree is cut down, pith extracted and torn up into small pieces, placed in a trough made out of a hollowed branch, the troughs tilted up so that water runs from one to the other, and the fibrous part is washed away, whilst the sago remains at the bottom. It is dried over a fire and left in the sun to let all moisture evaporate. They have also pumpkins and sugar-cane, so can have a varied menu, to say nothing of their passion for human flesh.
Their houses are generally built of bamboo ​framework on posts, the roofs and sides thatched with pandanus or cocoanut palms. Some are small and conical, others large, high, and gabled, and in places are built in trees or over the water. They generally have a stage in front, are sometimes divided into two compartments, and the sleeping-places are mats on the floor or on a low ledge. A chief’s house can be 80 feet long, 50 feet in breadth, and 30 feet high, and some villages have a street of quite imposing houses. Their “temples,” or tambu houses, are decorated with carved and painted figures, and sometimes the war-canoes, most beautiful structures, are kept in them, and often a large wooden shark with a human skull inside it. Pigs’ jawbones, human skulls, and bones add to the decoration. The men lounge about outside as a sort of club, but it is taboo to the women.
When anything is tambu, or taboo, it is sacred or holy, and they protect their houses or land by sticking crossed sticks in the ground, or by erecting tall, carved, painted posts. This is sufficient protection, and to be taboo covers everything.
On the coast they have, of course, fish, and now sometimes fish with dynamite, thereby getting quantities of fish.
They are, naturally, great believers in witchcraft, ghosts, and spirits, and make a great fuss over the Duk-Duk, a spirit which comes at certain times. In the islands two Duk-Duks come, in New Guinea itself a number. It is all stage-managed by the old men for their own benefit. The Duk-Duks arrive in canoes, yelling, shouting, and dancing, dressed in conical plaited basket arrangements which leave only the legs visible— sort of pantomime bogies. The young men— who are terrified—are drawn up in rows. The
MASK HOUSE AND MASKED NATIVES. NEW GUINEA.
(To face page 110.)
Some aristocratic families retain the hereditary secret of making poisoned arrows. A wound from one of these produces tetanus.
The canary tree grows much. It has a blue plum with a nut: both plum and kernel are eaten. The blue-crested pigeons are very fond of these plums, but disgorge the nut, hence they spread and sow it everywhere.
The borrolong is a beautiful tree with long, pendant, yellow-spiked blooms; but of course the vegetation everywhere is as wonderful as it is beautiful, and some of the timber, such as sandalwood and cedar, is magnificent, and New Guinea and its islands are paradises for the botanist and the naturalist, and being as yet mostly unexplored, offer for long an interesting field to scientific men.
What may they not yet discover in those unknown silent lands! It is said there are apes in the interior of some places, but nothing is known about them or what is really there. There are many snakes, poisonous and non-poisonous, and lizards of all sorts, the monitor being of great size. There are rumours of a new animal having been seen, a large marsupial ant-eater, I believe. But perhaps there is no ​foundation for this tale. [I think it was Professor David of the Sydney University—that member of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition who led a party to the South Magnetic Pole— whom I heard state that he had been informed by some person connected with British New Guinea that he had seen the spoor of some such huge animal. Dr. H. A. Lorentz—the well known Dutch explorer says that he had in his possession for a time the foot of some huge creature.]
Of the birds of paradise and the beautiful blue crown pigeons it is as unnecessary to speak as it is of the exquisite butterflies and beetles.
The natives have well-defined rights in the land, and have evolved for themselves a wonderful system of social government with the strictest laws, the infringement of some of which means death. They are very treacherous, and murders of whites are frequent, but on the coast are often provoked by interference with their women. As there are countless hordes of the natives, the few Europeans are in constant danger. The natives, however, cannot be judged as others; they do not understand our ideas, and naturally resent the intrusion of the white man into their tropical paradise, and his constant endeavours to rob them of what they consider theirs. They are, of course, nearly all cannibals. Just lately the Governor was in a room at Herbertshöhe with various others when suddenly his own boy—native servant— drew a revolver, fired at him, but missed him, though the bullet grazed Queen Emma's arm. You never know at what moment such things may occur. It is with their spears and axes they attack the whites, and these are formidable weapons.
Herr Walin and others had just returned with ​the Governor from his cruise to the Carolines; and I think Mrs. Parkinson, Queen Emma’s sister, was of the party, as she frequently accompanies the Governor as interpreter, knowing many of the dialects.
On account of the squalls and the abnormally heavy swell the captain decided to leave Herbert- shöhe, and proceeded, as did also the Stephan, the Governor’s vessel, to the station of Matupi in Blanche Bay, a beautiful little well-sheltered anchorage. The life of the colony for the present depends on the Stettin, so that it is necessary to run no undue risks.
[At Simpsonshafen, in Blanche Bay, the N.D.L. Co. have erected a pier and large building, and I believe the Government Settlement is to be moved there from Herbertshöhe. The steamboat line between Singapore and New Guinea has been abandoned as it did not pay, and a boat now runs from Hong-Kong by the Philippines to New Guinea and Sydney. Blanche Bay and Simpsonshafen take their names from the visit there in 1872 of Captain Simpson in H.M.S. Blanche.]
MATUPI, NEW BRITAIN, December 1900.
On arriving here at this beautiful little harbour it looked quite animated, as, in addition to the Stettin and the Stephan, there is here the large white steam yacht Eberhardt, belonging to Herr Bruno Mencke, a German millionaire. This yacht formerly belonged to the Prince of Monaco. Her present owner is said to have £35,000 a year—a large income for Germany—and I believe his father was a rich sugar merchant. This is his second visit to New Guinea, and he has come now for a three years’ cruise amidst these beautiful ​islands. They tell me he is most eccentric, has few interests or tastes of his own, but has brought out as his guests several scientific men.
Matupi is an island very near the mainland, with which it is to be eventually joined by a bridge {now completed]. It is quite a lovely spot, beautifully situated in Blanche Bay, and is dominated by the three volcanoes known as the Mother and Daughters—the North and the South Daughters. The Mother is quite alive and very active at times, but the Daughters are modest creatures, quiescent, and clothed with vegetation to almost the very top. There are hot springs in a river running into the bay, which is itself a crater into which the sea has broken.
In 1878 a volcano rose in Blanche Bay. At Cape Gloucester, the extreme west point of New Britain, is a nest of volcanoes found by Wilfrid Powell to be in eruption in 1877. There were one hundred craters, large and small, erupting fire, smoke, and fine ashes. The Father (4000 ft.) and the South Son (3000 ft.) are also volcanoes.
The sulphur fumes from the Mother are borne over Matupi by the wind; so it is quite free from fever, and one has only to glance at its German inhabitants to see how healthy it is. Herr Walin is a fine bronzed specimen of what a German be- comes under such conditions, and besides being a handsome, vigorous man, is also most pleasant and agreeable.
In Blanche Bay lie the two Bienenkorb Inseln, or Beehive Islands, two perpendicular rocks 220 ft. high, separated by a few feet of water and surrounded by deep sea. These islands are of ideal beauty. At the foot of one, on a coral ledge amidst cocoanut palms, is a native village with three hundred people who live by fishing. Some day there will be a great upheaval here, and all ​this beauty may vanish. Earthquakes are most frequent.
On or about 11th September 1900 there was an alarming earthquake. Early in the morning the natives were seen collecting on the coast and entering the water, and at 8.30 occurred a strange noise, followed soon by terrific thunderous reports, and the natives threw themselves into the sea for safety. The houses shook and swayed, the trees bent as before a gale, and it continued every half-hour till next morning. The water receded fifty feet, leaving quantities of fish high and dry, and this sort of thing went on till the 27th of September. The Stettin, at anchor at Herbertshöhe, was in danger, and frequently touched ground, dragging her anchors. To the relief, however, of the people at Matupi the Mother remained quite normal, though frequently she gave forth volumes of sulphurous smoke.
Matupi is a trading station of Hermsheim and Co. (or it may be Hernsheim), a German firm having many stations and a large connection in this part of the world and throughout the South Sea Islands. The island is thickly clothed with cocoa Pon amongst which, down to the very edge of the water, are the countless little houses of the natives surrounded by their cane stockades. This, of course, should have been the site of the settlement, and not Herbertsh6he, which is so exposed, and not free from fever. The earthquakes must be risked. The official capital of German New Guinea is on the mainland of that great island, but Herbertshöhe, on New Britain, is the residence of the Governor and other officials, and so is practically the capital.
What is called the “Station” at Matupi is a group of wooden houses of the bungalow type, and various wooden and iron store sheds scattered ​about amidst the palms and other beautiful foliage. The Germans are always neat and clean about their houses, and the square in front of these buildings is neatly planted with most beautiful variegated croton plants of brilliant aspect, with a somewhat uneven tennis-court in the centre. Long cane chairs bestrew the verandahs, which have also more or less artistic curtains. It is all most pretty and charming, and Matupi is a most desirable spot.
The blue sky and sea, the waving green palms, the lovely islands, the white ships at anchor, make quite a beautiful picture. I am in a fever to come and live in this wonderful land and have an island of my own! The idea has already caught on, and all are joking about my island. Amongst the Germans who boarded the Stettin on our arrival—they all came to lunch as a matter of course — was an exceedingly pleasant young fellow, Herr Cart; but all were cheery, friendly, and no longer the least put out at the advent of this dummer Englander. Men may be wild and unconventional in such parts of the world as this, but they are also real and true and only too glad to mix with other white men, so few are there here.
The German colonial possessions of New Guinea, comprising Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land (the mainland), the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Isles, the Caroline, Marianne, and Marshall groups, and Samoa, comprise 243,819 square kilometres, with a native population estimated at 452,000; but, of course, it is not known how many natives there are. [The total white population (1904) is said to be 1098.] Here, in these actual New Guinea possessions, they tell me there are no more than three hundred white people scattered about on the mainland and the different islands. [In
CANOE ORNAMENTS.
BONITO FISH HUNG IN CANOE HOUSE, WITH SKULL.
islands. Leaving out Queen Emma and Mrs. Parkinson and her daughters, I can only hear at present of three German women—Frau Wolff, the wife of a missionary, and the nurse at the hospital at Stephansort on the mainland. There may possibly be one or two wives of missionaries on remote islands, but they tell me there are not.
Kaiser Wilhelm's Land—the German part of New Guinea—is 181,650 square kilometres in extent, with a given population of 11,000 natives—though probably there are three times that and 113 whites. I doubt very much if there are even 100 whites on the mainland; they probably count in the traders who occasionally visit it. The Bismarck Archipelago that is, New Britain, New Ireland, New Hanover, and the rest together with the Solomon Isles, comprises 57,000 square kilometres. New Britain is 350 miles long, New Ireland 240 miles long by 15 broad, and New Hanover 40 miles long by 20 wide.
Some of the Solomon Isles are within the German sphere and some within the British. With the same almost insane lack of foresight which has characterised all the dealings of the Home Government with these seas and isles, they allowed the best part of them to fall to Germany. This is a real misfortune, and it is a great pity Germany has any of them. It would have been better for herself also not to have them, as will be seen in time. As much as she can she shuts them against all traders save Germans; others must pay a large annual licence; whereas the British ones are open to any one. At the ​same time she gave a binding undertaking when she acquired her possessions in these seas to afford British subjects all the trading and other facilities her own people had, and which we so freely accord to any one. What, then, does Germany expect? Is it to be supposed when she pursues the policy she does that she can have the sympathy or friendship of any one?
There are a certain number of traders, British, Scandinavians, and so on, scattered amongst these isles. Most of these men live alone at their station, often a small isle, and frequently have a regular native harem, besides the other natives who work for them. Each is a little king, but his life is in daily danger. The natives of the Solomons have always been notorious as head-hunters and cannibals, and are the same to-day—they go one hundred miles for heads. Bougainville, the largest and most northern of the isles, is 120 miles long by 30 wide, has a range of mountains several thousand feet high, and an active volcano. There are alligators, turtle, and wild boar in the isles; but, on account of the natives, they are not yet explored. Rubiana is a headquarter for British traders, and the largest British isles are New Georgia, Guadalcanar, Malaita, and San Christoval.
Nothing can be more interesting than to picture the early endeavours of the Spaniards in these seas, as related in the MS. of Hernando Gallego, 1566, a copy of which is in the British Museum. Don Philip II of Spain ordered Lope Garcio de Castro to equip two ships and set out from Peru to “discover a continent” and Christianise it. I like the large order—“just go and find a continent”; but they were elated with their conquest of Peru.
On the 19th November 1566 they left Callao ​in Peru. Alvaro de Mendana was general, Pedro de Ortega Valencia, commander of troops, Fernando Enriquez was royal ensign, and Gallego was chief pilot. They had four Franciscan friars, and, with soldiers and sailors, the expedition counted one hundred men. They felt capable of conquering any amount of continents. They sailed about thirty leagues a day, watching the flight of birds and flying-fish. On the 15th January they sighted and came to an island. Seven canoes came out and then went back; the natives lit fires at night and hung up flags. Now whose flags or what flag did they hang up? These people were nude and brown. This was named the Isle of Jesus. On 1st February they sighted some islands and reefs, which they named “Los Bajos de la Candelarea,” thought to be identical with those called “Ontong Java” by Tasman, in 1643, and seen by Le Maine and Schouten, 1616.
On 7th February, the eightieth day out from Callao, these gallant little ships, the Almiranta and the Capitana, sighted more land, and reached it the next evening. Natives visited them, and they inspected the shore. On the 9th, guided by a star in daylight, they entered a harbour with an island, and named it Santa Isabel de Estrella, and the island Santa Isabel, though the natives called it Camba. They disembarked, set up a cross, and took possession in the name of the King, and at once commenced building a brigantine. Pedro de Ortega, with fifty-two men, comprising soldiers, sailors, and negroes, went a seven days’ expedition inland, and, as they put it, burned many heathen temples—one soldier being wounded and dying. On the 15th March fourteen canoes came to Santa Isabel and sent the general as a present a portion of a boy with hand and arm— he had it buried in their presence as a reproof. ​By the 4th April their brigantine was ready and launched, and on the 7th it left with Gallego, Ortega, eighteen soldiers, and twelve sailors, and went coasting, having frequent tussles with the natives, who seem to have been exactly then as they are now. On the 12th they came to the island of Malaita, where they bought a pig from the natives—where did they get their pigs from, I wonder? These natives had beads, the same as those at Puerto Viego in the province of Quito (now Ecuador) in South America. This was at Pala, now called Gala. The natives were naked, tattooed, had many villages, and they had many fights with them. Gallego says they “reddened their hair, eat human flesh, and have their towns built over the water as in Mexico”—it is exactly so to-day. A large island with a volcano was reached 19th April, and then a fine harbour, called by D'Urville in 1838 Astrolabe Harbour. They named the islands of Jorge (St. George Isle), and San Marcos (Choiseul Isle), and at Santa Isabel de Estrella found their other ships.
All leaving together 17th May, they came to Guadalcanar, set up a cross, and took possession for Spain, fought the natives, and record that they got “two hens and a cock.” Some of the soldiers were killed. They named and took San Christoval; then they visited and named nearly all the Solomon Islands. Gallego says somewhere that they thought they were at or near New Guinea, and goes on to say, “Inigo Ortez de Retes discovered it and no other; but Bernardo de la Torre did not see it;” but it was not New Guinea. Then they saw the Marshall Isles (as is supposed), the Isle of San Francisco (Wake's Isle), and saw by bits of rope and nails, etc., that a ship had been there before them—what ship, I wonder? They had terrible times, hoisted blankets for sails, and ​Gallego says: “We were much wearied, and suffered from hunger and thirst, as they did not allow us more than half a pint of stinking water and eight ounces of biscuit, a few very black beans and oil; besides which there was nothing on the ship. Many of our people from weakness were unable to eat any more food.” After terrific storms the Capitana, on 24th January 1569, entered the Mexican port of Santiago, and three days later, by some strange chance, the Almiranta, without masts, boats, and in the last extremity, and not knowing where she was, joined her consort—a truly remarkable thing. They left on the 10th of March, sailed down the Mexican coast, and at “Guatuleo” sent a boat ashore; but all the people fled, “because”," he says, “they had heard in Mexico that we were a strange Scotch people.”
Now what do you make of that? Here were these people in Mexico, a country conquered by the Spaniards, visited by other Spaniards belonging to the other conquered country Peru, and they run away in fear because they think they are Scotch! Even if they did wear kilts, that could scarcely have shocked people who wear, some of them, nothing at all! Cortez and Pizarro, the respective conquerors of Mexico and Peru, were friends and relatives, and so you might imagine they knew in Mexico about the expedition of the Peruvian Spaniards, as they would hear of it from Spain if no other way. The Germans have a theory that the white people, or fair-haired, blue-eyed people who came from Titicaca calling themselves the Sun and Moon, conquered all the Indians, and became the famous Yncas of Peru, were “Irish.” I say they were just as likely to be Scots and these people in Mexico must have Scots, had some traditional idea that the Peruvians were Scots—or else why imagine these Spanish ​Peruvians were “a strange Scotch people”? There I leave it.
They beached their ship at a Nicaraguan port for repairs, but got no help; on 14th May reached Santa Elena in Peru, and on the 26th Don Fernando Enriquez left for Lima, with the news of the discovery of land and islands. Laus Deo!
So ended this wonderful voyage, a marvel of courage and endurance. They were extraordinary people these old Spaniards.
But, strange to say, the isles they had discovered were lost for two hundred years.
Mendana had named them the “Isles of Saloman,” thought they were full of gold, and was dying to get it. The Spaniards considered them to be the Ophir of Solomon, from which he brought the gold to build the temple at Jerusalem. When Drake appeared on the scene and went “lookseeing” about, the Spaniards concealed all knowledge they had, so that the English would not benefit by their experiences.
In 1595 Mendana, an old man, accompanied by his wife, Donna Isabella Baretto, sailed again from Peru with four ships and four hundred sailors, soldiers, and emigrants. Fernando de Quiros, who had been with him before, was his chief pilot, and San Christoval was their goal. Half-way across the Pacific they came to the Marquesas de Mendoza (now called the Marquesas), but another month went by ere they sighted more land. The Capitana signalled to the other ships, but only two replied. The gallant Almiranta did not answer; she never has answered, and her fate is a mystery. She had one hundred men, women, and children on board. Who knows but some day yet some trace of her may be found in those unknown isles.
At Santa Cruz they tried to establish a colony, ​but between natives and illness they came to grief. Mendana and his brother-in-law died; and when only fifty miles from the Solomons, as is now known, they turned back and made for Manilla in the Philippines, but one ship, the Fragata, disappeared. She was said to have been afterwards discovered ashore somewhere “with all her sails set and all her people dead and rotten.”
Again, in 1605, Quiros left Callao with two ships and Luis Vaez de Torres as second in command, determined to find the Solomons, that Land of Ophir. At last he came to San Christoval, but had no idea it was one of the Solomons or that he had seen it forty years previously. So, still looking for it, he sailed on till he reached a great land, anchored in a bay, and named it Australia del Esperito Santo. A mutiny broke out, and he sailed back to Mexico, leaving Torres and his ship behind. The great land is said to have been an island of the New Hebrides, now known as Esperitu Santo; but several writers of to-day, amongst them Cardinal Moran, the distinguished Archbishop of Sydney, strive to prove that Quiros really did reach Australia and that the harbour and island he named were Gladstone Harbour and Curtis Island in Queensland; and it would seem as if there is good ground for this assertion. Curtis Island is the lone isle where Mrs. Campbell Praed, one of the most interesting of Australian writers, spent part of her early married life, and about which her novel, An Australian Heroine, is written. I myself was once nearly becoming part owner of this large island; but that is long ago now. Its owner, Mr. Paterson, used to swim his horse across the Narrows which divide it from the mainland and make his way to Raglan, where I met him when on a visit there. Perhaps that was Solomon's Land of Ophir, for gold enough is there, ​as near by is the most remarkable gold quarry—it is scarcely a mine—in the world, the famous Mount Morgan.
When the town of Gladstone was surveyed and laid out in 1853 it is said that at “South Tree Point” there was found in the sand a brass cannon, a pivot gun about 5 feet long, with a bore of 1½ inches, in very good preservation and inscribed “Santa Barbara, 1596” (Santa Barbara was patron saint of artillery in Spain).
High up amongst the bush on the eastern side of Facing Island the remains of a very ancient ship with oaks growing through her gaping sides were discovered. The existence of this interesting relic was vouched for by Mr. Friend, the oldest surviving resident of Gladstone, and it was inspected by Mr. Richard Ware, one of the original surveyors of Gladstone, and by Mr. Colin Archer of Gracemere, a pioneer landowner. Mr. Archer had been originally a shipwright and shipbuilder—he long after this designed the Fram for Nansen—and he pronounced the build of the vessel to be Spanish.
They also found on a projecting detached rock at Auckland Point a carving in stone of a man's face with a partly obliterated date below. At some remote period timber had been cleared at South Tree Point, two wells sunk and lined with “imported timber.” There were traces of a building, and “a stone erection had been founded some feet in the loose soil.” A large block of stone with smooth sides was marked with crosses, and was thought to have been an altar.
Mr. William Archer, the well-known author, is a relative of the Mr. Archer of Gracemere whose name is given.
[Mr. William Archer writes that his uncle, Mr. Colin Archer, mentioned above, and now resident ​in Norway, has no knowledge of these facts, and, if true, it must have been another member of the family, now dead, who is referred to. The story is given in official Queensland publications, but is doubtful. Also the account given by De Quiros in his memorial to the King of Spain goes far to demolish the theory that his port of Vera Cruz and Gladstone Harbour are identical, as he mentions the population being great and of various colours—“whites, yellow, mulattoes, and black, and mixtures of each.” They own no sovereign, but group in tribes “little friendly towards each other.” Their fruits are six sorts of plantains, almonds of four sorts, large strawberries of great sweetness, ground nuts, oranges, and lemons; they have sugar-cane, pumpkins, beets, and beans, and they have also pigs, goats, hens, geese, part-ridges, turtle-doves, and pigeons—this will never do as a description of any part of the Queensland coast at such a date. If there were white people, De Quiros could have learnt something of their origin.]
Torres thought it was only an island, and left, and, sailing through what is now called Torres Straits, eventually arrived at Manilla.
Quiros had missed, as he thought, the Solomons, and his Australia del Esperito Santo had been declared to be no continent, but only an island, yet he was not cast down. He went to Spain, addressed fifty petitions to the King, and in 1614 set sail for Peru, but died at Panama. Then for one hundred and fifty years the Solomons and their natives were left to their own devices, strange as it may seem.
In August 1766 the Dolphin and Swallow, under Captains Wallis and Carteret, left Plymouth, and after passing through the Straits of Magellan lost each other. Carteret on the Swallow sailed on, sighted and named various islands without ​having the least idea they were the Solomons, as has since been proved.
In 1790 Dalrymple, in his Historical Collection of Voyages, declared that New Britain, discovered by Dampier, and the lost Solomons were one and the same. Captain Cook also believed this. King Louis XVI. of France in 1785 ordered La Perouse to go out and decide the question, but his expedition came to disaster and he perished. Then D'Entrecasteaux, in search of La Perouse, visited these isles, but did not guess they were the Solomons. It was Dumont d'Urville who in 1838 established their identity. Then came traders and missionaries to be killed, and in 1851 the yacht Wanderer, with her owner, Mr. Boyd, went cruising among them, but Boyd was killed and the yacht eventually wrecked at Port Macquarie in Australia.
Even now these mysterious isles are unexplored, and almost uninhabited save for the head-hunting cannibal savages who worry the traders. And where is the gold? No, I am afraid Solomon's Ophir was not here, but was, after all, in Australia; and that Cardinal Moran is right as to its being the Great Land of Quiros, but that there is some confusion as to what places that explorer is referring to.
This is no doubt all very boring, but it is not to me, for I seem to see those gallant little ships of long ago sailing and tacking amidst this wonderland of beautiful isles, which to-day are almost as they were then, and in most cases are unchanged.
I wonder if there are any boys, real boys, left now who ever read about such things and desire to emulate them? I once lived much near a “crammer's,” where scores of boys—men, they called themselves—were preparing for their ex​aminations to be soldiers of the Queen, and saw much of their life and heard much of what they thought, but none of them seemed to care for anything save the passing amusement of the moment, and least of all did they know or care anything about the military history of their country or the profession they were going to—what is the word—adorn, is it? What do people care about nowadays? Bridge, golf, motors!
Let us get back to Matupi. With Captain Niedermayer and the two Englishmen from the second class I explored Matupi, we who were new to it being deeply interested. The natives have very small grass houses varying in appearance, surrounded by fenced-in enclosures in which they grow bananas. Even in this small island the people seem to swarm, and there are hordes of merry, mischievous, taking children all happily clad in their own natural beauty and wide smiles. Most of the men here have the lobes of their ears enlarged to an enormous size; a few wear a strip of red cloth, but most are quite nude. All these people suffer much from ringworm and other skin diseases, especially the children. They seem all to speak pidgin-English. There is a school with a native teacher, a mere shed with packing-cases for seats. Many magnificent bread-fruit trees and cocoa-palms are scattered about; but all these islands are tropical jungles filled with palms, ferns, orchids, and all sorts of beautiful plants and trees unknown to me. I feel terribly, shamefully ignorant when I look at them and don't know what they are, but no one seems able to tell me.
At a point of the island we visited a store belonging to a Chinaman, Ah Tam, who is also an excellent boat-builder, and the only one anywhere, so he is a valuable addition to the colonists of this country. He has also a boarding-house ​for Europeans, but no boarders in it. Chinese are not allowed to own land here, yet they say he is quite rich, as he deserves to be. What would such lands do without these industrious, clever Chinese, who are so quiet, peaceable, and orderly, and invaluable in so many ways? I bought native money—cowrie shells—from this man, and we all remained with him for some time, yarning. Messrs. Walin and Kooman—the latter married to a niece of Queen Emma—entertained us to a whisky and soda at one bungalow. It was a most comfortable and tastefully tended house. Herr Walin told me he had just bought a “beautiful group of islands” for his company, Hermsheim and Co., from the natives for £7, IOS. in trade, which meant about £3 in money! Captain Niedermayer burst out laughing at the look of desire and greed that came into my face—for my island or group of islands is being much discussed. Walin said it took him a whole day to bargain with the natives, as they did not want to sell. He bargained through an interpreter, and the natives said they understood what they were doing!
The system of land purchase here, so far as I understand it, is as follows: Permission is first obtained from the Governor to bargain with the natives for their land. They never want to part with it, but are dazzled with the concertinas, scarlet cloth, beads, and other “trade” displayed to them, and cajoled into agreeing to sell. They seldom understand what it is all about, but are supposed to do so, and to agree to part with it for a small sum in “trade.” Having got your land, island, or whatever it may be, for some trifle, as little as you can, you then have to buy it again from the Government. What you pay depends on who you are and how the Governor likes you. You may get it for almost nothing, or be asked a ​prohibitive price. The same rule applies to a British subject or one of any other nationality, but as the Germans are strongly opposed to any British coming amongst them, the Government asks a price they know the applicant cannot give.
I do not think the Germans are much to blame in doing this for the present as regards British applicants. They are as yet a young and small community, have trouble enough with the natives as it is, and do not want complications with the British, and fear that many British—who would probably be Australians—would be difficult to deal with. All this is true and from their point of view very natural, but, of course, at a future time it must be different. They are sensitive to criticism at present and nervous as to losing full control, and I sympathise with them. In years to come, when the white population has increased and the unknown lands and islands are explored and opened up, they will be forced to keep the open door for us as much as we do for them. Then it must be remembered that at present many of the British traders, beachcombers and the like, who find their way in vessels to these little-known isles, are often most undesirable characters who behave badly to the natives, create trouble and bloodshed, and it is the Germans who suffer. They do the same themselves, of course, but if there is trouble through Germans they are more easily dealt with. This should be remembered and some latitude accorded Germany in this new land as yet; but, none the less, we have the right to equal and fair treatment with their own people. Was theirs not such a mean and little “dog-in-the-manger” policy in its entirety they would receive more sympathy than they do. They have yet to find their feet, and, since they are there, it is only right we should be friendly and considerate and be on ​good terms with them. Good colonists as they are under us or America, they have not yet—here, at least—learnt how to colonise for themselves.
Personally, no one ever resented or resents the stupidity of our Home Government more in ever making it possible for any Foreign Power to be here at all than I do, as I can foresee the trouble that will arise in the future should it long remain a German possession; but, since they are here, and legitimately here, I feel a real interest in their progress and much sympathy with their present aims and endeavours to develop this land. Of course, they have done little, wonderfully little, since they gained this new territory, but then it has all been done from Berlin, and the place has not a chance. They all know that here. As usual with Germany her colonists are officials, mere paid servants dying to get back to Germany and comfort, and often caring little about the country here. It is themselves, their interests and possible advancement, they think about mostly. Till population increases it cannot be otherwise. Fever and natives kill so many that others are not tempted to come out.
What my friend, Baroness Frieda von Bülow, has written so much about in connection with the German African colonies applies equally here. How she would stimulate and wake up these people in this colony!
* CANOE ORNAMENT, SOLOMON ISLANDS.
* PIPES AND FLUTE, NEW BRITAIN.
* AN IDOL, NEW GUINEA.
* FLOAT FOR A FISHING NET, FROM SOLOMON ISLANDS.
* WATER-JUG, NEW BRITAIN.
To face page 130.
With the Captain, the Doctor, and Professor Biro I escaped ashore from all this. We went to Herr Thiele's house at one end of the island. He is manager for the company but is away just now. The absence of a host made no difference, and his boys rushed to attend to our wants. The house fronts Blanche Bay is the usual bungalow, but very comfortable, and so were the chairs on the broad, shady verandah. We spent a whole afternoon there, our own hosts, and even entertaining Herr Kooman to a drink when he came. A very pretty garden full of Chinese vases and terraces of brilliant flowers descended in front to the sea, and around rose the volcanoes, the Mother and Daughters. A lovely soft breeze cooled the air, and it was all delightful. This seemed to me an ideal spot—surely one could dwell peacefully and happily amidst these beautiful surroundings. Of course, the volcano and the earthquakes are a drawback. A musical instrument played for us all the time, and, it not being too strident, we quite enjoyed its mechanical rendering of well-known airs. Near by—a detached wooden building—was the billiard-room. This room would have excited admiration anywhere. Its white walls were decorated artistically with native weapons and ornaments. As these are most interesting in design and artistic in their colours of red, brown, black, and white, the effect was really beautiful. The designs of these native productions are wonderful; many resemble the old Celtic designs one finds on the Irish or West Highland crosses and tombstones. The carving, too, is astonishing when it is remembered they are all carved out of solid wood with bits of hard shell or flint, for it is only now the natives are entering into the Iron ​Age. Their canoes, most beautifully decorated, are hollowed out of tree trunks. But most people are familiar with these things in museums.
Herren Walin and Cart later entertained us to beer and whisky-and-soda at their residence.
The same night there was a gathering at Herr Thiele's billiard-room. Captain Fort of the yacht Eberhardt, Captains Knut and Niedermayer, our first officer, Dr. Dunckler of the Eberhardt, and the Stettin doctor were all there, and later Captain Dunbar, Walin, and others joined us, so it was a large gathering. We played billiards, had many drinks, many songs, and much music, and got back to the Stettin very late. All these people, especially the Captains, were full of jokes, stories, and reminiscences, so I was in very good and amusing company. My recollections of Matupi and Blanche Bay are likely to be pleasant and enduring.
Every one is amused and interested in my desire for an island or group of islands, and in hearing what I would do with them. It was the universal verdict that the great Admiralty Group would just suit me, and nothing, they thought, would be easier than for me to acquire it!
These islands were discovered by Schouten in 1615, and were visited by the Challenger, but as yet are little known, though now more visited. A Scotsman called Donald Dow lived for a time on them collecting bêche-de-mer, but what became of him in the end I do not know. They are a great source of trouble, as the natives are very fierce and warlike. Various whites have been attacked and killed there, and the Moewe had to go and retaliate and punish, killing many natives and capturing others. So, of course, any white man landing on them runs a good chance of being killed and eaten.
“Now,” I said, “do you think I do not see ​through your little game? You would like me to take these islands, establish stations on them all, with Englishmen in charge. Then when we had civilised and opened up the islands, decimated as many natives as we could, and been killed and eaten ourselves, you Germans would step in and reap the benefit.” This was so exactly what they had thought that they all burst out laughing and owned up.
“No,” I said, “I should put as many Germans as I could get into all my stations, and when they had done enough killing and been killed in their turn, then I should introduce a number of British, and where would you be then?”
“If ever you get those islands, or any islands,” said young Cart, “just you engage me. I will serve you faithfully, that I promise you, and I never knew any one I would sooner serve than you.”
I said I would remember, that I believed him, and made all due acknowledgments. Then I said [I shall always remember those idle words spoken in jest], “That would be splendid; you could be killed and eaten instead of me. Prepare yourself for it.”
[Here I must insert what did happen, and what has caused me to remember those idle words.
This young Herr Cart (I have read somewhere hat his name was not Cart, but Caro, but I am not sure what it was) entered the service of Herr Mencke, the millionaire. They went to the island of St. Matthias in the yacht, and landing there had a fight with the natives. Herr Mencke was wounded and died two days later, Cart and many of their escort were killed. The body of poor young Cart was never found, and it is believed he was eaten by the natives. Some say he was not eaten, but how can they know? I do not ​know all the details, but the bare facts are sufficient to show how every man carries his life in his hands in these islands.]
In all these islands, especially in New Britain, the natives are great cannibals [since 1900 many whites have been killed]. They even organise manhunting expeditions. In 1897 a man was killed and eaten at Ralum, Frau Kolbe's estate, and quite near Herbertshöhe. Fortunately they do not like white man's flesh, as it is too salt and tastes of tobacco and alcohol, and they are afraid of his spirit. When a man is killed and eaten, part of the flesh, wrapped in leaves, is sent round to friends as a delicacy, the women generally getting the breast, which they like much. One idea of the natives is that when they eat a man his strength and wisdom enters into them. It will be remembered that in 1801 the well-known missionary, Chalmers—with another, Tomkins—was killed in British New Guinea and their steamer plundered. When Queensland sent an expedition to avenge this they found that thirteen of Chalmers' party had been killed and eaten, and only a few parts of the body of Chalmers were found. They burnt eleven villages and blew up all the war-canoes with dynamite.
Even fifty kilometres from Herbertshöhe all the country is unknown and the natives most troublesome, and even that part called the Gazellenhalbinsel is not properly explored. In the Solomons, or nearer at hand in New Hanover and New Ireland, as well as on the mainland, it is just the same.
It was on New Ireland that the famous expedition of the Marquis de Ray came to such a tragical termination. This Frenchman, a Breton, got peasants and others, mostly Bretons, to realise all their possessions, placing all in his hands, to ​go to a wonderful paradise he described to them, where they would all have the most beautiful farms flowing with milk and honey. Having got their money, he looked at a map and thought New Ireland would do as well as any place, chartered two crazy ships, the India and the Genie, placed 300 emigrants—men, women, and children—on each, and sent them off. This was in 1880. They were landed at Cape Breton, in New Ireland, and left there without food, clothes, houses, or arms. Statues of de Ray and of the Virgin were also landed and erected side by side!
Some got away in boats, many died of fever and hunger, and, of course, the natives had a say in matters. The survivors were eventually taken to New Caledonia and later to Australia, where some became farm labourers. A newspaper called La Nouvelle France was published at Marseilles and continued to be issued long after the colony was extinct, always giving glowing details of its progress and riches! The Marquis de Ray was sentenced to some years' imprisonment. (I believe a survivor of this expedition is still resident in New Britain.)
On Bougainville one member of the expedition, an Italian, who became imbecile, lived long with the natives and became a cannibal. He was eventually bought as a native for two tomahawks by the crew of a trading vessel, who thought to sell him for £25 in Queensland, but on finding he was an Italian left him at New Britain. . This did not happen in far back ages, but not very many years ago.
I was sorry when we left Matupi; after some days, and returned to Herbertshöhe, where there was still a heavy swell on and traces everywhere of the great monsoon and the damage it had done. Matupi was so sheltered we had scarcely ​realised what was still going on. There was scarcely a whole boat left in the place. Ah Tam, the Chinese boatbuilder, would have his hands full.
HERBERTSHÖHE, NEW BRITAIN, December 1900.
As soon as we returned here I went ashore with King Peter and Professor Biro. I have such peculiar tastes that I really enjoyed the tussle through the surf. The night before one of the missionaries coming in his boat from an outlying station was upset in the surf, escaped with his life, but lost boat and all else—the Bishop would be pleased!
The instant we landed on the beach my eyes fell on a really characteristic German touch, for there was a board with the well-known police notice, “Für Fussganger verboten.” Fancy this familiar sign out here in New Britain! I remember an officer’s wife in Germany saying anent these notices, “There is more forbidden than allowed in Germany.” [Herr von Hesse-Wartegg, who was in New Guinea after I was, refers to this in his book, excusing it, and says it was to prohibit foot-passengers walking on “the little railway”; but this little railway is so small one could not see it.]
I looked about—the notice referred to a steep little narrow path leading to the top of the bank, so we obeyed the notice and walked up alongside the path, not on it.
We went at once to the Catholic mission, which is called Kuningunan, or Vunapope. We were cordially received, and the Bishop entertained us and showed us all his buildings. The church is of iron and of good design, and, being painted outside to look like stone, is quite imposing. The ​heat inside under the iron roof was overpowering. There is quite a village of buildings round it—the most imposing settlement in German New Guinea. Quite a large new house was in process of building for the Bishop's palace—for the church is, properly speaking, the cathedral. There were various separate buildings for the missionaries, Sisters, and children, all very airy, bright, clean, and well kept. The numerous children seemed very happy. Sister Amigunda and the rest told me they were quite delighted with their new home. The hospital contained only one patient, a dear little boy, a son of King Peter's. He has also a little daughter being educated here, the dearest little princess of the French Isles you ever saw! She was so delighted to see her father again, and adopted me on the spot, coming of her own accord to put her hand in mine, and sticking to me most trustfully all the time. She had beautiful dark eyes, was very pretty and taking, and I am so terribly weak about children that I was taken captive at once. Indeed, all these native or half-caste children were very bright, pretty, and graceful.
The Mother Superior and the Sisters—several of whom, from Sydney, were English or Australians—entertained us at their house and were all so cheery. The schoolgirls—nice, happy-looking girls—sang songs for us very well. The Sisters wore cool and becoming white and blue robes, and altogether it was hard to believe we were in wild, remote New Guinea amongst the cannibals.
Here also were several native women captured in the Admiralty Isles by the Moewe at the time of the fight, and brought away as a punishment for the murders done there. The Sisters had clothed them fully, but the poor wretches looked most unhappy and could not be reconciled ​to the situation. Imagine these absolute savages being suddenly brought into all this, and how terrified and bewildered they must be! No doubt they awaited some dreadful death. Their strained, anxious faces were not pleasant to see.
One of them had a little child with her, and when I approached and held out my hand to it she clasped it to her convulsively. I waited with outstretched hand and the little mite suddenly toddled to me with glee, gurgling all over with delight, and put its little paw in mine at once. The anguish on the mother's face was almost startling—she evidently thought I was going to take away, or kill and eat it perhaps—probably thought the arrival of us men meant her own death—who can say what was in her mind? But I knew just what to do to make her understand I was no enemy. I moved beside her, placed one of her little kiddy's hands in hers, closing hers over it with a nod and a smile, but still holding the other little paw. She gave a gasp of relief, and the wannest of smiles broke through the anguish on her face. Just then I could see right down into that savage woman's heart, so I just kept on looking, smiling and nodding at her whilst I tickled the crowing child. In a few minutes she was at ease with me, smiling at the antics of the little one, whilst the Sisters were absolutely delighted; as it was the first sign she had given of any feeling in her stony despair since they had had her. She perfectly understood, as I knew she would, what I meant by closing her hand over the child's—that it was hers, and that I did not mean to take it away. We left her looking pleased and wondering. She and the others did not know that after some time they were to be returned safe and sound, laden with presents, to their own island. I wonder what she ​would tell her cronies at the first evening party or afternoon “At Home” when she got back, as to the strange people who had not eaten her?
Then we saw the half-caste school for the “better classes”—nice-looking, well - mannered children, and amongst them a Parkinson boy. Dear little Princess Angela Hansen belonged to these, and was by way of showing me round and not at all inclined to leave me, nor I to leave her. They played the piano for us, sang, and showed their needlework.
All this is very pretty, interesting, and nice—but what is to become of these educated half-caste children? The little girls when they grow up, educated and taught refined ways and useful things, can never marry Papuans, of course. Some will doubtless become teachers, some may marry Germans, but many will be sought as mistresses for the European men. That must be their fate. Many of these half-castes are the offspring of the native or Malay girls who live with the Germans—no house, indeed, is without its half-caste child on the verandah. The Germans “marry” these girls young and get rid of them when tired of them; but some of the Malay girls are very attractive and keep their lord's house in perfect order, and the men get so attached to them that they do not part with them. In some cases they have legally married them, but that means that they can never return to Germany with these wives and families. It is all a great pity and a huge mistake, as the first colonists born in the land are half-caste.
As to the real natives, the Mission “adopts” small children, educates them, teaches them agriculture and other useful things, and proposes when they are of suitable age to marry them to one another, set them up in villages with some cocoa-palms, cattle, and so on. All this has been tried ​elsewhere and long ago, and the result has never been satisfactory. The Mission claims to have made many thousands of converts!
The Mission was first founded in 1845, when Bishop Epal and twelve missionaries sailed from Sydney for the Solomons—most were killed and eaten. A fresh start was made here in New Britain in 1889. The Bishop has eleven other stations on the islands and mainland. Archbishop Navarre and two bishops are the heads of all the Catholic missions in this part of the world. I believe Mr. Parkinson presented them with 1000 acres here or elsewhere. A Wesley an mission was founded in 1875, and has now various stations in the Archipelago.
It is to be hoped they will not take to clothing the natives, or they will all die off of pneumonia at once. A piece of red cloth which they can drape about themselves as they please on gala days is all that they want. These natives; when taken away from their homes; frequently die of home-sickness.
Let them send out from Europe a batch of German girls, who will find eager husbands awaiting them; and so people this colony with a white race. A simple; homely bourgeois German girl would here find herself a person of importance. You cannot people a colony without women; and they ought to be white women.
A deluded band of people—men and women—set out from Germany to live here in this colony “the simple life,” that is; to discard all raiment, as the natives do; and live in the sun. Their primitive Garden of Eden soon came to an end, and such of them as survived returned to a more conventional existence.
From the Mission a path—no made road or street—wanders along the bank to Herbertshöhe, ​which is a mere scattered collection of a few wooden houses and iron stores. It is not laid out in any way as a sort of encouragement to people to inhabit it or make a town of it. There are no shops—there is not a tailor, shoemaker, baker, or anythingelse in all the German possessions—merely here a store of the New Guinea Co. Every single thing wanted must come from Singapore, Australia, or from Germany. Anything to be repaired must be sent away. It is surprising to find this, the residence of the Government, such a primitive place, and I do not understand the reason. There has been time enough for the place to have become a regular town. I believe some attempt has been made at a road for a short distance inland, and there is one through Ralum, but at Herbertshöhe is nothing at all. There is a native hospital—a shed with bunks. I went through it and, disregarding doctors, gave the few patients cigarettes, and they were delighted. I then went into the New Guinea Co.'s store, but could find nothing to buy. Then I went to Frau Kolbe's store and bought a collection of New Guinea weapons, idols, and curios. These stores are full of red cloth, red paint; and red beads for trading with the natives.
I walked about all over the place and amongst the natives, then, joining the others, we lunched at the hotel—for there is one—with Herr and Frau Wolff, and had a long yarn about many things. The market was going on in the road outside, so I went out with Frau Wolff to inspect everything they had and witness some bargaining. She, of course; had to bargain like this for everything.
They have about sixty half-clad native police—and revel in drilling them.
Mr. Forsayth took me into his office to introduce me to his mother, the famous Queen Emma, or Frau Kolbe, to whom a presentation is de rigueur. ​Her father and her first husband having been Americans, she has a very assured position, not lessened by the fact that she is the owner of Ralum and so much other wealth. She owns, too, quite a fleet of boats. She manages all her affairs herself, queens it with a rod of iron over everybody, and has at least twelve hundred people in her employment. She is now the earliest European resident.
[Miss Pullen-Burry, in her book In a German Colony, says of Queen Emma: “She came to these shores from Samoa in a small trading vessel, with a few followers, and a revolver at her belt, when she began operations by trading with the natives in European goods.” For particulars of how Queen Emma marries and divorces the natives, so settling their grievances, I must refer the reader to Miss Pullen-Burry’s clever and amusing book.]
She is very stout, very dark, was dressed in red and white flounced muslin, very busy at her bureau, and smoking cigarettes when we entered. A glance was sufficient to see that here was a capable, clever woman, of marked power and character, had I not already known it. She offered me a cigarette, and was most gracious and condescending, as a royal lady should be; but I expect she regarded me as a necessary infliction. She told me she had never had the fever—which is an unending topic of conversation here. A young New Zealander in the Forsayth store told me she had had it scores of times. I was interested in seeing this famous and important lady—who will remain a marked figure in the history of this land —as I had heard so much of her, and she quite impressed me. What is it not to have a personality, to os distinct from others! and how such a personality leaves its mark everywhere and influences others! Yet how few have it! Queen Emma ​is perfectly capable, I am sure, of ruling all New Guinea, and doing it well—in fact, I believe it would be the making of the country to let her do it.
[I am told, 1910, that all the property and plantations of Queen Emma and her company are valued now at over £150,000, and are for sale. These royal possessions are situated in many desirable spots on various islands, and well worth a large sum, as their value must increase with population. It is probable that rubber will become here, as elsewhere, a source of revenue.]
The young New Zealander—a quiet, gentlemanly, nice-looking youth—I felt quite sorry for. He was just a paid employee in the store. He suffered terribly from the fever and the climate, and was sick to death of New Britain and his life, longing to get back amongst his own countrymen again, but saw no chance of it. I invited him to visit me on the ship for dinner and a chat, and he accepted eagerly, but never turned up, and some one told me afterwards that I had made him feel more homesick than ever. I could understand that.
Mr. Forsayth then took me to his own house near by, and introduced me to his wife and children. The lady was pleasant and good-looking, also with a strain of Samoan blood in her. In the dining-room were many beautiful native curiosities well arranged. The dining- and billiard-rooms are in a separate house, as all the staff dine with them. It is pretty and well laid out, with flower-beds amidst the palms. How the Germans can see all this, and not make Herbertshöhe better, is curious. A young German who was there took me back to the ship; I forget his name, but he is engaged to one of the Miss Parkinsons, a niece of Queen Emma. ​The next day half of the inhabitants came on board—Walin, Kortz, Forsayth, Kolbe (Queen Emma’s husband), and amongst them Mr. Parkinson, a most pleasant and gentlemanly man, who is a great authority on all the islands and the native ways and customs, and has written several books on these subjects. From his name and looks I took him for an Englishman, but he told me he was a German, and that his family had been German for generations.
[I might here recommend to any one interested Mr. Parkinson’s well-illustrated and most interesting work, Dreizig Jahre in der Südsee, though I do not think it has ever been translated into English. It teems with interesting information, and is certainly the most valuable book published on German New Guinea.]
When I came in to lunch and found all this crowd there, Captain Niedermayer asked me would I mind for once taking a seat not my usual one, which, of course, I did not mind, especially as, being a Scottish Highlander, wherever I sit is “the head of the table.” Then King Peter entered, gave a look at his hated rival, Mr. Forsayth, seated in his place, and left the saloon. A message was then brought to the Captain that King Peter demanded his own seat, was a passenger, and was not going to be so treated! The Captain repeated it out loud, got into a passion, and a terrific uproar ensued. King Peter got his seat, but the uproar went on, and was continued on deck, where King Peter, the Captain, and Herr Kolbe nearly came to blows! It was a long, simmering feud at last bursting into open flame. Germans have no control over themselves, and scream, shout, and shake their fists at each other in a perfect passion of nervous rage. I regret to say I coolly sat down and regarded it all as if it ​was got up for my benefit, which exasperated every one—a naughty devil possessed me for the moment. They annoyed me by all this nonsense, so I took it out of them that way. Afterwards I had to be peacemaker, calmed down the captain, and gave King Peter a real talking to, which he took like a lamb, and promised to be good for the future!
Whilst the mailboat is in, the inhabitants all come aboard to meals, and for a new atmosphere and fresh beer, and there are high jinks. The deck afterwards is strewn with rows and rows of dead soldiers—empty beer bottles. The captain does not approve of this, but cannot and does not like to prevent it, and says that some time he must end it if more passengers begin to use this route. Very few do so at present, as from Australia they take the China mailboat via Torres Straits.
[Herr Hesse-Wartegg in his book says that when he was at Herbertshöhe the people all came out crying for beer and ice, and asking, “Have the English had another beating from the Boers?” They no doubt rejoiced heartily at news of every disaster to the hated “English,” just as they did openly and continually in Germany itself, and, for the matter of that, in France and in Belgium.]
After lunch—this very stormy meal—I went ashore with Mr. Parkinson, who drove me in his buggy for some miles through the beautiful plantations. The Germans compelled Queen Emma to make a road, though they made none themselves. The road was merely turf or laid down with pumice stone. It was a delightful and interesting drive through a lovely scene. At places orange trees were planted between the rows of cocoanut palms, doing well and looking beautiful. Every year, I was told, thirty thousand young cocoanuts are planted, so that for a long period of time Queen ​Emma's estates must go on giving a handsome profit. She imports cattle from Australia. Her house, which we passed, is a bungalow gay with flowers and plants. We went on to the Parkinson bungalow, Raluna, or Raliuna, where we found Mrs. Parkinson and one of her daughters. Mrs. Parkinson is not like her stepsister Queen Emma in looks. She is a very popular lady, very clever and well read, and plays an important part in New Guinea. There was a market going on. Mrs. Parkinson was bargaining for fruit and vegetables with a number of native women who sat outside on the ground at one end of the verandah, where she stood before a table laden with tobacco and cloth, which they got in return for their produce. The old women were more than hideous. Some were in mourning, and had blackened their faces and heads.
On one occasion the natives collected in hundreds, and attacked Queen Emma and Mrs. Parkinson at their respective houses. Mrs. Parkinson managed to send a message to her sister to hold out, as she meant to do. She boldly faced these armed savages, revolver in hand, and announced she would shoot any one who attacked; on their attempting to rush her she fired and killed two men, when the rest immediately fled. The natives were enormously impressed by this courageous conduct of hers—facing alone hundreds of infuriated savages armed with spears and axes.
Mr. Parkinson told me that besides all this property at Ralum they have 5000 acres in the interior and 25,000 on Bougainville, and in fact the Germans, when they first came, allowed them to keep everything they claimed.
An English trader who came on board the Stettin to see me, and who had come from New Ireland (Neu Mecklenburg), told me curious stories ​about the natives there and their ways. He told me also that the Germans hated the very idea of British coming in, which was perhaps natural. He bought an island—every one has got an island but me, which is an outrageous shame—of about 1oo acres in extent from the natives for £8, but had to pay the Government £50 for it.
You hear so much about the treachery of the natives and the continual murders of the whites, but somehow, as I walked about exploring, it never struck me that anything could happen to me. Native races I understand and am interested in,and they know that by instinct. I cannot feel any fear of them at all. Yet it is true that those who live among them in confidence and security for years, trusting them and trusted by them, are frequently killed at a moment’s notice. It always seems to me so likely it may happen to the next man, but impossible it could to me! Anyway I cannot get up the smallest fear of these savages, and a mob together does not disturb me; but I think a mob of people anywhere is such a cowardly thing, each protected by the others, that it allows the worst and meanest human attributes full play. A mob is more easily cowed than an individual. History shows how true this is everywhere.
I admire these Papuans here for many things: I like the air of self-reliance and dignity they so often exhibit; and they, like all native races, have an instinct towards their friends. They are, however, speaking generally and of the many various races, doomed to a not distant extinction.
Ere we left Herbertshöhe I went to bid adieu to Frau Wolff, and we had a long talk. I asked her if she was not afraid to live alone at their inland plantation, but she said she had not the smallest fear of the natives, and was sure they would never harm her. She paid no heed to them, and though ​often alone and, when her husband was away, beyond help, yet she was sure she was perfectly safe. "Mind you take care of yourself anyhow", were my last words, "and don't let those savages kill you."
She only laughed as she waved adieu.
[Alas! I must here insert the fate that befell this poor woman. Their plantation was about five miles inland from the coast, on the side of Mount Beautemps Beaupré. On the morning of 2nd April 1902 Herr Wolff went out early to super-intend the work of his plantation. Frau Wolff had staying with her a half-caste Samoan lady, Miss Coe. A number of natives approached the front of the house with a pig for sale, and, whilst the two ladies were bargaining with them, an armed native suddenly rushed through from the back of the house and dealt poor Frau Wolff a terrific blow on the back of the head with his axe, which felled her to the ground, and instantly struck Miss Coe on the neck, and, as she was falling, gave her another stroke on the back of the head; but her knot of hair caused the blade to glance aside, and she fell off the verandah to the ground, seven feet below, stunned, but still conscious. Thinking her dead, they left her there. Then the savage yelled, and hundreds of concealed natives rushed forth, and to the house, actually springing over Miss Coe's body. They were all yelling, and killed any of the Wolff servants they came across, including the native nurse and Frau Wolff's little baby, and destroying everything they could.
Just as this commenced Herr Wolff rode up, was fired at with his own guns, and, seeing he was helpless to oppose them, rode off for assistance. Meanwhile Miss Coe—a young girl—lay overcome with terror awaiting death. Some one touched her, and she found it was the brave and faithful ​cook-boy, who motioned to her to roll under the house, which was built on piles raised above the ground. Then he assisted her to his kitchen, or some little outbuilding, where was his native wife, and both the women took refuge in the rafters, whilst he locked the door and stood outside on guard. The natives missed her body, and, looking through the window of this outhouse, saw the women's skirts hanging down; but the cook outside and his wife inside both kept calling out that they were only natives, and that the police and the whites were already coming; so the natives decamped in haste, and Miss Coe, on hands and knees, escaped through the bush—that is, the thick undergrowth—and eventually reached the Mission building, where she found refuge with the Sisters; but whether this was at the Bishop's Mission or another I do not know.
A native, escaping, met a German planter and gave him the news; he immediately galloped to Herbertshöhe, and in a short time the Judge—the Governor being ill—at the head of twenty armed whites, was hastening to the spot. When they got there they found Frau Wolff's dead body pierced with many spear wounds, and the head and face hacked by tomahawks, lying in a pool of blood, and near it the dead bodies of her six months' old baby and its native nurse-girl. Just then returned Herr Wolff, who was, of course, distraught at the sight which met his view. According to the account written to me, the Germans, capturing one of the tribe, made him lead them to where the others were, and exterminated the whole lot of them, killing more than two hundred; but the two principal culprits, one of whom was the chief, or both were chiefs, I think, escaped. Afterwards Dr. Hahl, the Governor, offered the natives peace if they would deliver up these chiefs, ​so one day a number of them brought in two heads, supposed to be those of the culprits. It can be imagined how roused were the feelings of the whites by this brutal deed, and how determined they were to inflict a just punishment.
It is a gruesome tale to hear of at any time, but how much more dreadful it seems to those who knew the poor, simple, good-natured woman who so trusted these people and was in this manner done to death. It shows how fully justified are the whites in their distrust of the natives. Remember, this occurred but a few miles from the now long-established seat of Government. Every one there, as these things show, is in daily, hourly danger, and no one knows at what moment the apparently friendly natives around may not turn on them and kill them. The natives at once vanish into the interior, and it is impossible to follow them into that trackless, unknown wilderness.]
When we Herbertshöhe, and had got outside Blanche Bay and past the Mother and Daughters, which on that side look very steep and have cocoanut plantations and native houses at the foot, a regular gale set in and continued all night, with downpours of rain, terrible flashes of lightning, and the Ehrenlicht, or St. Elmo's fire, as I think we call it, burning at the masthead—it is a terribly uncanny thing to see those electrical flames burning round the mast, and this was a storm with a vengeance.
Stephansort, New Guinea, December 1900.
On this morning, after we left Herbertshöhe, still continued in sight of the New Britain coast, we passed Deslac, one of the French Islands, and of note as the home of King Peter. ​It is about 8 miles long by 3 broad. There are seven islands of this group, Merite being one, and over all King Peter holds sway. He pointed out everything to me with pride, though he was somewhat subdued after the talking to he had from me, and he and the captain would not speak. Deslac has two very good harbours; one of them, Peters-hafen, is the residence of King Peter.
Captain Jorgensen, whom we had embarked at Herbertshöhe, a Scandinavian, as his name implies, had traded much in this region with his schooner and was full of information. He used to buy the cowrie shells from natives at one part of New Britain in cocoanuts—so much a cocoanutful—and sell them to natives of another part, who strung them on string as money, a fathom of this money being worth 4 marks, and at present 3 marks 50. It is called dewarra. Next year they say this is to be done away with and the natives taught to use the new bird of paradise coinage. It will therefore be necessary for the British New Guinea people to learn the use of our money also.
One side of Mérite for some unknown reason is fever free. Dampier Straits lie between New Britain and New Guinea. The natives there are noted for their cleverness with the sling, the stone being put in with the toes. Dampier sailed through these straits which bear his name in I700. Other straits between Waigou and Batanta are also called Dampier Straits.
There was a most brilliant sunset, rendering the scene simply superb. During it we passed Long Isle, Pollin Isle, and others—in fact went through a sort of wonderland of sea and isles, all aglow in roseate beauty and not easily to be described.
Early next morning we lay at anchor off Stephansort, in Astrolabe Bay, on the mainland ​of New Guinea, which the Germans call Kaiser Wilhelm's Land.
Baron Miklaho-Macleay, a Russian, came to this port, was by his own desire landed at night on the shore with his goods and chattels and left there alone. When the natives found him he pointed to the sky to signify he had come from At first they there, a heaven-sent gift to them. maltreated him, but eventually became friendly, and he lived for two years amongst them as a sacred person. Meteorites from the sky have been common in the annals of wild lands, but, unluckily, most of them found it boring to keep up a saintly reputation, and soon exhibited signs of coveting his neighbour's wife and all that was his.
Stephansort was founded I888, and is the largest and oldest settlement. Before that, under the Astrolabe Bay Co., predecessors of the Now Guinea Co., were founded Finchhafen, Hatzfeldthafen, Konstantinhafen, and Butaneng; but these were eventually desorted on account of natives and fever. The mountains at the back of Stephansort rise to a great height and are wooded to the summit. Here they say they are 14,000 ft. high, but I think a few thousand feet must be cut off that! There are, I believe, no less than twenty-two species of birds of paradise found in this district.
Really, New Guinea at last, and one of my ambitions was attained! I could gaze my fill on those huge mountains of the Mysterious Land where never has the foot of white man trodden. Behind and beyond the mountains is an unexplored, unknown region. Stephansort from the ship appeared merely a fringe of palms backed by this coast range tree-clad to the top, and with here and there a gigantic tree rising above the others against the skyline. ​At one part of the shore a shed or two and a pier were visible, called Erema, and from this a “rail way” runs through the forest to Stephansort to kilometres away. I had heard much of the up-to-date attractions of the place—of its club, hospital, many plantations, and of the railway―and in my ignorance really imagined that there was a regular town here, and that Herbertshöhe was nothing to it.
As soon as possible we made for the shore, rowing, not to Erema, but some distance along the coast. The party consisted of the four British from the second cabin, the Professor, King Peter, Mr. Hesse the purser, and myself.
On landing, we visited the native village of Bokajim amidst the palms, our advent being heralded by the rapid disappearance of all the females into the houses in every direction, brown legs and feet vanishing into every aperture. They of course “keeked” at us through the chinks in the walls. The old chief, who received us with dignity, was very amusing. He graciously condescended to be photographed, and posed with ease. This brought the ladies forth in huddled, giggling groups, ready to bolt if we men showed signs of aggressive gallantry, but somewhat reassured by the sight of the ladies with us.
When the men—hugely delighted and full of conscious affectation—were photographed, the dusky ladies could not resist drawing nearer. I asked the chief's permission to give them cigarettes, and he waved to them to come near, and they thawed to me at once, giggling, coquetting, and making eyes for all they were worth. They smoked their cigarettes and strolled about full of airs and graces, thoroughly reassured, and by no means averse to a little flirtation—one eye on the chief all the same to see if he minded. However, ​he was in high good humour, and this reflected itself on them all. They wore a short, bunchy skirt of grass, and some were comely. Of course they were used to seeing people at this place, but experience had taught them to beware of the white man.
We then visited a store, and, after a walk by a narrow path through the tropical jungle, called at the house of a German Protestant missionary, whose wife received us. I had to do all the talking for us strangers, as the others knew no German. The lady annoyed me because her mouth was all red and black with chewing betel-nut. Then, in company of Herr Muller, the postmaster, we went to the club, or “house kai-kai” as the natives call it, kai-kai being food. This is a roomy two-storied wooden building with a large dining-room and a billiard- room, with access to the roof—which was of matting or thatch—from whence a view over the green palm-tops to the distant mountains could be had. Here we all had cool drinks.
I was impatient, though, to reach the town and the railway station, so we did not linger.
There is no town; the whole place is merely a large plantation, and the different buildings are scattered wide apart amidst the palms and other trees. There are no shops of any sort—everything has to come from Singapore or elsewhere. There are about eight European houses, and then dwellings for the one hundred Malays, with forty women, and one hundred and ninety Chinese.
We were then taken to the “railway,” which turned out to be a curtained cart drawn by two small bullocks under charge of two Malay boys! It is true it ran on rails, and so it was a railway.
THE OLD. OLD STORY. NEW GUINEA.
(To face page 154.)
We then inspected the tobacco factory, being shown round by a young German who had only been a few months in the country and had already had fever several times. Everything was very clean and in order. There were one hundred and sixty employees at work, forty of whom were good looking Malay girls, and the rest strong, handsome Chinese from Canton. Here, too, they had much of the capuc. We then went to another building where Malay girls were separating the seed from the capuc, and the piles of capuc and cotton in heaps looked exactly like wool. These girls, who showed us everything and explained, were very handsome and extremely well mannered. Really life at Stephansort must be very bearable!
All these plantations belong to the New Guinea Co., and there is much local wrath and scorn because, owing to a partial failure of one or two, due to some temporary climatic cause, the Directors in Berlin had sent out orders to place the plantations at other spots where they had put dots on the map―in the midst of swamps and jungles! All the governing powers of the New Guinea Co. are now being taken over by the Government, and henceforth they will be private company, but owning many choice areas. I believe the company which became the chartered New Guinea Co. in 1884, when the German flag was hoisted at Matupi, had been in possession of some plantations previously to that. On their governing powers ceasing they received a sum of somewhere about ​£20,000 as compensation, and retained many large areas and stations. In time, no doubt, they will reap a fine reward with rubber and other produce, though, as is always the case in a new and tropical land, they have much to contend with. The clearing of the ground and the keeping it clear is no light task.
As there existed no hotel or house of entertainment we were told that the club was free to us, and that we were to go there to lunch. King Peter said that the club in this manner entertained every stranger who passed by free of charge. This seemed bountiful hospitality, so we went back to the club, and King Peter, the Professor, and Herr Hesse having temporarily deserted us, we five Britons made ourselves at home there. Two Chinese servants were alone visible, and after a time one announced that lunch was ready, and we sat down to it. We were all in a thirsty mood, but shy of actually ordering drinks, debated the question, and were wondering what we ought to do when Herr Hesse joined us, and he having beer at once we also had some; but as we were our own hosts whilst being guests of the club, it was somewhat embarrassing. After lunch, as we sat smoking in the adjoining room, the Chinese servant approached me with the bill—it is always to me bills are brought—and we found our luncheon was five shillings a head! This was perfectly right and proper, but we wished we had not been deluded into the idea that we were being entertained free by the club, as then we could have ordered wine or what drinks we wanted; and I was still more vexed that I had not invited the purser—who had taken the trouble to show us round—to lunch and wined him well. We all looked at each other and tittered over this, but were relieved, ​and would not allow the ladies to pay their share. I descended on King Peter for having led us astray.
After lunch—feeling bound, as one always does on a first visit to a great city, to see the tire-some sights-we visited the hospital, which is a moderate—sized building, but clean and airy. It has an open space—a clearing in the tropical jungle—in front of it, adorned with a monument to the Landeshauptmann Curt von Hagen, whose residence it had been, and who was murdered by the natives. There were two fever patients, Germans, both looking melancholy wrecks. The nurse—a very important personage—was a very fair, healthy-looking, handsome German, quite imposing in her starched white attire, a really handsome woman. She, the betel-nut mission-ary's wife, and Frau Wolff were at this time, so far as I could learn, the three German women in this German colony. As she spoke no English, I again had to make all the conversation, and became quite irritated at having to translate to my compatriots. The great Professor Koch lived here for a time, conducting experiments in connection with the coast fever or malaria which decimates these lands. His theory was that the fever microbes were carried about by the mosquitoes, who, when they bit people, left a microbe behind. It is very bad here, and people are sometimes attacked suddenly and are dead in a few hours. This theory of Koch's is now accepted by the scientific world generally, but has some opponents.
The nurse, however, did not at all approve of Professor Koch's theories or treatment, though, of course, one can understand that quinine is of service in a moderate way. I fancy they sometimes overdo it. She told me she had had the fever several times herself, but she looked the ​picture of health. The Germans seem to have no stamina and to collapse at once. Many here are quite wrecks. They think, however, that Professor Koch did much good.
I am rather prepared to agree with the nurse. All these sorts of countries, primeval lands, have the same coast fevers. It is due to the partial clearing of the tropical jungle, which lets loose the fever microbes born of the accumulation of decaying vegetation, which the sun never reaches till the overgrowth is cleared away. The mosquitoes may carry it, but it exists without these pets. In places where the fever no longer exists, the mosquitoes still flourish and devour. The whole Australian coast once suffered in the same way, and it is yet so in Queensland, but gradually the fever gives way to population and the clearing of the lands. Two brothers of mine, arriving at Rockhampton in Queensland, were down with the fever the same day. Now, it is not nearly so bad there as it used to be, and in places has disappeared, and you hear little about it. Moreover, the people lead such foolish sorts of lives, drinking things most unsuitable to the circumstances. I am a firm believer in tobacco as a preventive, more particularly in the shape of cigarettes, and in this I have every one against me. A pipe, I think, is half poisonous in itself on account of the nicotine, and, after experimenting with pipe, cigar, and cigarette, I truly believe the cigarette to be the least harmful, and, as a preventive of malarial fevers, the best remedy. I felt particularly well amidst all these fever-stricken people.
BIRD OF PARADISE (PTERIDOPHORA ALBERTI).
(To face page 158.)
boars are ferocious, the boas harmless; but there are also many poisonous snakes, scores of lizards, including the large monitor which the natives are fond of eating, crocodiles in the waters, and, of course, birds. The beautiful blue-crested crown pigeon is as good to eat as to look at. There are bush hens, which bury their eggs in the sand to be hatched, and, of course, there are the wonderful birds of paradise. The natives get these latter by watching where they roost, hiding in the tree, and shooting them with arrows. They, however, often spoil the skins, and many of those offered here for sale are useless. They cost here It is really much more than they do in London. only the natives who get them. We heard them quite near, but could never see them. The Professor could tell us which was the male or the female by its note. Eight hundred species of Papuan birds are now known, including ninety species of pigeons and eighty species of parrots. To enter into details about these would mean a volume to itself. Very singular is the Pteridophora alberti, a bird of paradise that has two long, wiry strings from its head ornamented with pale blue horny discs like shells.
I always had a vague feeling of disappointment that there were no wild beasts. There are rumours of apes in the interior, but no one seems to have seen any. You feel there ought to be leopards or tigers to go with the scenery. They might introduce a few to add to the attractions; ​they would look really well here, bounding about, if that is what they do in their natural homes. only know them in zoological gardens or in cages—here they would be charming, and add quite a zest to an afternoon stroll.
One tiger story always lingers in my memory. Once Cardinal Moran, the well-known Archbishop of Sydney, was having tea on board ship with my sisters and me. A man who was present related a long story of the tiger-hunting adventures in India of a friend of his. This person was in an open space in the midst of a tiger-haunted jungle, and, leaning his rifle against a tree, sat down at its foot to have a smoke. Suddenly a tiger appeared and the man swarmed up the tree, but left his rifle behind him. The tiger seemed amused and strolled about, smiling to itself, or perhaps gambolled and tried to catch its own tail as you see kittens do—what does a tiger do under the circumstances? Anyway, this tiger did the correct The man in the tree, however, liked dead tigers better than live ones, so he threw his hat into the jungle, and, when the tiger sprang after it, he slid down and got his rifle. The next chapter—but here His Eminence capped the story by rising quietly, giving us all a smiling bow, and said gently, as he sailed away, “I suppose the tiger put on that hat!”
Professor Biro only snorted when I asked him whether he could not show us a tiger. He took us to a place where he had had a house and lived in the forest two years before this collecting his butterflies and things; but in two years the jungle had grown 20 feet high and was an impenetrable mass, so we had to resign ourselves to believing his former house was in the middle of it.
I walked nearly all the way, gathering beautiful plant after beautiful plant, only to throw them thing. ​away as I saw something better. Then I had always to turn back to help the others to lift the “railway” over the broken-down places, which were frequent. Some streams were bridged, but the car was always helped tenderly over, whilst the bullocks were unyoked, led through the water, and re-yoked the other side. It was not an express, and we understood why the Germans had complained about it having no sleeping carriage.
At last, however, I reached an open space near Erema, where in a plantation some “long Marys”—that is, native women were working. One of these, a particularly repulsive-looking lady, at once began to flirt with me and made enticing invitations that I should join her—I, however, made warning gestures to the approaching railway, and the other women yelled with laughter. The railway caught a glimpse of this, arrived in a state of giggle, and then exploded at a near view of the charming siren.
At Erema it was broilingly hot, and we all sat on the end of the pier and waved frantically to the Stettin for a boat. By the side of the small pier a number of perfectly nude natives and some Chinese were engaged in rolling huge heavy logs of timber into the water. They formed a picturesque group against the green palms behind. These Chinese are Cantonese (they must be from the province of Canton, as I saw none like them in Canton city), and are very tall, well-made men, their yellow smooth skin and blue loin-cloth making a strong contrast with the brown of the natives. One of these latter after being in the water lit a small fire on the sand and stood astride over it, having with manifest satisfaction a smoke bath. He was a sight for the gods. Meanwhile, we coo-ee-ed, shouted, and waved white umbrellas to the Stettin for a boat, but they took no notice. ​As we were white here—every one dresses in white here—we formed a brilliant patch on the whole landscape, and wroth indeed were we as a full hour went by. At last a boat came ashore, though not for us, but despite remonstrances we seized it, and when on board the ship nearly ate up the officer in charge. He said he thought he had noticed something white waving and had heard strange sounds—but he promised never so to offend again.
The Finisterre Mountains are about 10 miles from Stephansort. Captain Cayley- Webster, who was here in 1893, tells in his book that he went from Simbang, which was about 170 miles from Stephansort, to visit missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Fleyd or Fleyel, at the Saddleberg, 12 miles in the north-west direction in the interior. They lived at the summit of the mountain, 3000 feet high. They could see New Britain, and below them the abandoned Finchhafen grown over with jungle, and in the graveyard of which “lie the bodies of many Europeans, their wives, and children.” It was there he got the Paradisea guilielmi— one of the most beautiful birds of paradise. [Amongst the many others got in this district are the Paradisea raggiana, and those other beautiful birds, the cat-birds and the violet manucode, live specimens of all of which may be seen in the Zoo in London.] Captain Cayley-Webster tells of the arrival at Stephansort of a case containing a piano for the Governor, and how the natives kept dropping it and rolling it along to hear the sound it made, calling it the “box belong cry.”
Various people, employees of the New Guinea Co., came on board, all fever-stricken yellow wrecks. Every one seemed upset and unwell, but I was flourishing. It was very sultry and oppressive, and every one collapsed under it. The Captain ​and some of the officers are fever-stricken, and quinine is the order of the day.
Certain things strike one forcibly here. There is a great lack of enterprise and initiative amongst the Germans. We and they adopt different systems of colonisation. With us it is the individual full of enterprise and initiative who goes ahead, so long as he has a free hand, carving his way and his fortune out of the unknown land, scarce at all helped or fortified by his Government, which only follows reluctantly where he leads. Our Governments do nothing until forced to do Everything so, They carry this to an extreme. at first with the Briton is utility; he has no time or inclination for comfort or for beautifying his new home―it must first be made to pay. Hence the bare, ugly utilitarianism of new Australian settlements, springing up in a short time, a long street of verandahed shanties lining a broad road. Once firmly established he begins to improve the place and pay a little attention to the adornment of it.
The Germans, on the contrary, look to their Government for everything, do not strike out boldly for themselves, and if the numerous Government officials do nothing, the colonist sits down and waits till they do, for he, the colonist, has no free hand. Under direction he will do well, but he waits for that direction, and hence it is that a German colony is composed principally of officials, all sick of the place, and dying to get home again to the comforts of the happy Fatherland. They make their official residences neat and pretty, a and go in for what comfort they can get and as much sleep as can be included; hence initiative and enterprise are at a discount. This comes from their long home training as part of a great machine, where all thinking is done ​for them. In a new country it is a wrong system. There is a happy medium between the two systems which neither nationality attains to. The Germans are excellent, peaceable, industrious colonists under us or in America. In their own possessions they stagnate. They need more freedom, and the surety of profiting by their own enterprise.
Since the Government must do everything, it is very obvious here in New Guinea that a duty of the Government is to build roads straight out into the interior from each port, gradually extending these roads, from which in time other roads would branch off on either side. The natives of the interior would gradually and naturally avail themselves of these roads to bring their “trade” to the coast, and they and the roads would be constantly kept under observation and control. Gradually inland posts are established along the roads, giving further control over the natives, now hidden in impenetrable forests and beyond restraint; and so in time the land and people are peacefully won. Only the Government can do this; it is no light and easy task, and means money, but the system repays itself in time in more than one way. Once there is a controlled road, the telegraph wire is a natural sequence, and so the interior is linked with the coast.
We have been a small community on this ship at very close quarters, and have got on together wonderfully well. Now there appears to be a little rift in the lute. For one thing, almost every one is affected by the close, moist, muggy, intense heat; several have fever, and no doubt the Troppenkoller, which gives title to one of the Baroness Frieda von Bilow's clever novels on the German African colonies, has its counter​part here also. There is a sense of irritation in the air, people are fretful and nervous, some really ill. I am the well one, so, of course, irritating to the others, as sick people do so hate the sight of those who ought to be ill and are not.
I, too, I am guiltily conscious, have contributed to the present want of harmony. I had better be frank and say that I have been, and am, in a vile humour, bored, snappy, and actually pleased at hurting the feelings of others. Unfortunately, when I am in one of these vile moods my ill-temper radiates from me to quite a distance. The paint comes off the ship, the iron rusts, and gloom and melancholy pervades every one. I have always known this, but it is only since studying Swedenborg that I have understood the cause. The evil spirits Swedenborg tells us about, who make their home in me uninvited—as they do in all of you, so don't imagine you are better—like hot, muggy, unbearable atmospheres, are reminded no doubt of where they came from, and so at present are very active.
But it is true. When I am bad-tempered every one else is put out and there are gloomy faces everywhere; it extends even to the deck passengers. Then I overcome it, and since it is my pleasure to be amiable and cheerful again every one else brisks up. I make an effort and “buck up” every one—even go amongst the deck people, say things here or there, tickle the babies, and all is rose-coloured again. But to be conscious you can do this thing, and will not do it, is really terrible.
Any instrument, if played on properly, will respond sympathetically; but lately, through various reasons, I have had to be thrown much in company with my fellow-countrymen on this ship—they are all very good, quiet, and all right— ​but somehow they jangled the strings, played false notes, and put me completely out of tune. Therefore, it is not music I emit, but discord. Then I have roused ire by being well and saying a great deal about the effect on the fever-stricken of the constant swilling at whisky and beer. I might have been forgiven the whisky, but I have wounded them on the tenderest spot by railing against the unlimited beer, and that is an outrage on their very nationality.
Nevertheless, I am right—how could spirits and sticky beer be anything but detrimental in this overpoweringly hot, airless, moist climate?
Then my references to Troppenkoller have been a little too acid perhaps, and, if true, are none the better for that, for truth is so unpleasant to most people.
How I wish Frieda von Bülow was here! How deep would be her interest in this part of the empire she loves so patriotically and has worked so well for! What discussions we would have, and how her fine, frank, independent spirit would rouse up these people here—and they need it!
[Since these words were written, the Baroness Frieda von Bülow, so well known as a popular authoress in Germany, has passed away. This brilliant and gifted woman was in her younger days, when I first knew her, as handsome as she was clever, with a rather Byronic head. She went to South Africa to organise a hospital in one of the German colonies, and wrote several interesting books dealing with that land. After the death of her brother, Baron Albrecht Bülow, an officer who was killed by the natives, she returned there to manage for herself a plantation acquired by him. Had she not been a woman, ​her high-minded, far-seeing, patriotic endeavours to stir up interest in the Fatherland in German colonisation would have met with public recognition. As it is, I trust that yet some day Germany will recognise her patriotic work, and that, in that German South African possession she loved so well and worked for, they will erect a monument to her memory. A woman of many sorrows, she once wrote to me, “You write tragedies; I live them”: and it was true.
It will not be forgotten in Germany how, during the trial of Carl Peters, when the country was roused to indignation at the public insult offered “a noble woman” by the Socialists, she bravely, in the face of the world, proclaimed her feelings for Carl Peters and the friendship subsisting between them for many years. Once—long years before this—she had hoped to marry him—this is no indiscreet revelation, for she often spoke of it but they mutually agreed that friendship alone was all they cared for. Corresponding with her through many years, I always knew and saw that what really attracted her in Carl Peters was not the man, but the position and power he had; her one-time desire to join her fate with his was the idea that, as the wife of the Governor of a great province, she would be enabled to work with him to accomplish some of her great aims for the development and advancement of those new German lands. By birth she was the social superior of Carl Peters, as she was in other ways; but the power he one time exercised glamoured her, and she saw herself, as we often jestingly called her, “Queen of Africa.” Every one who knew her regretted deeply the untimely fate of this gifted woman. She was for a short time lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Roumania, in succession to Mademoiselle Vacaresco; but Africa ​always called her, and deep indeed was the wound ingratitude dealt her.
Her gifted sister, Margarethe, and her two brothers, Kuno and Albrecht, met tragic fates, and I fear her own life was a tragedy in itself, but her death came as an unwelcome thing to very many. For many years—indeed, from the first day I met her in that old Hanoverian castle—I enjoyed her friendship, and we corresponded on many subjects of interest, particularly political ones, just as I corresponded for years with her cousin, Marie von Bülow (now Madame von Scala), daughter of the former Prussian Ambassador to the Vatican at Rome. The Bülow family seems to have more than its share of intellect.]
I can see Frieda von Bülow now coming intothe Gobelin Zimmer in that dear old Hanoverian schloss and asking directly, giving you no loop-hole for escape, “Do you think there is such a thing as free will?”
The beautiful old schloss—why, it is winter there now, and snow is deep everywhere, in the Hof, on the lovely old gables, all over the porch. The moat is frozen, and they are skating. I can hear the jangle of sleigh-bells—it is the Baron coming home from the Wild Schwein Jagd, his old green fur-lined coat well up over his ears, and Luke the Cocher is clapping his arms over his chest to restore the circulation, and nodding a cheery “Schönes Tag, Herr Baron” to you as you lean out of the window. It is always “Schönes Tag,” and you are always “Herr Baron,” whether you are or not, to Luke, if he likes you—but I am havering! There is no old snow-covered castle here—it but made me cool for the moment to recall it. I dare say they are speaking of me at this minute—my rooms are vacant, my seat is vacant—but they little dream I am in a German colony amidst savage ​cannibals. I doubt if they ever heard of this place—people in the Middle Ages, as they are, could not. They want here to know what is amusing me, because there is a smile on my face.
“I am in in Deutschland,” I answer, “in the happy Fatherland. There is snow and ice everywhere, and the music of sleigh-bells, and they are getting ready for the Weihnachtsbaum.”
Then I wish I had not said it, for there is silence and I have set them thinking— it is well for some of them not to think of such things and wonder if they can ever see them again. I look at the yellow, wasted faces—yes, I wish I had not said it.
I instantly make good resolutions to be amiable and cheerful again if possible—I have no reason to be otherwise, after all, with these people, who have been more than kind to me.
So I tell them—as we lie there in our long chairs—a tale the Professor lately related to me of a man who was in great danger amidst the natives, and did not know what to do, till a happy thought struck him, and he suddenly took out his false teeth and dropped them with a clatter into a pannikin. The natives were dumbfounded and gazed at him with wondering respect, and one old man said, “Thank God I have lived to see this day!”—not that any native ever said such a thing really, but, anyway, every one is laughing, so it is all right.
FRIEDRICH WILHELMS HAFEN,
NEW GUINEA, Dec. 1900.
We left Stephansort in the cool of the night—if you can call it cool! My good resolutions ​are not yet paving the streets of a more tropical place than this.
We got to Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen, which is about 22 miles north of Stephansort, very early. It was founded, 1891, as the capital, and still is the official capital. It has a beautiful little land-locked bay—Sydney Harbour in miniature, but much more beautiful. The boat lies alongside a small wharf, where is a store and some sheds, so one steps on land comfortably. It is all New Guinea Co. here. The chief director is Herr Hansemann, after whom a mountain, rising above, is named. It is curious, but when they gave the inevitable name of Bismarck to a range of mountains inland they had not noticed how Bismarck’s face in profile is limned against the skyline. Now every one sees it and wonders it could have been overlooked. Captain Cayley-Webster in his book says that the Bismarck Mountains do not exist, and that Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen was abandoned as unhealthy, and nothing left but ruined houses. What he means I do not know—it is quite a mistake. There are some well-situated houses, especially that of the assessor, and of Herr Kohler, who is a manager, or “big white fellow master,” as the natives say. The store-keeper, a very fair German, entertained the Captain and me in the store to champagne. here was a small child, absolutely black, there. “Where did this schwartzer Junger, this black thing, come from?” asked the Captain. “That is my son,” was the answer. The child of a very fair German and a brown woman had come out absolutely black!
I was conducted to the sights—the post office and then the prison. The latter is a wooden building. The cells had plenty of air, a platform bed, with blanket or mat, and a large water-jug—quite palatial for a native. The doors were open ​and the prisoners looking after the place themselves, and seemingly quite proud to belong to it. We looked into the houses of the native policemen, who wear a uniform, and greeted their wives and children.
The fever is very bad here; all Europeans and natives get it. When Professor Koch was here in this year he said the ships should not remain at night it was too unhealthy.
A German, his wife, and two little girls were going home to Germany. They were all packed up and ready, but when the Stettin came in they were all too ill to leave. When she called again on the next trip, both the man and his wife were dead. Even here are no shops and nothing to be had. They must get everything by the Stettin, and Captain Niedermayer is a sort of universal provider for them all. Yet they are very proud of their progress, and excuse everything lacking by saying it takes four to five months, or longer, to get things out from Germany—ignoring Australia and Singapore nearer at hand. No one can have sympathy with nonsense of that sort—there is something so foolish, so little, so mean about it. There are about twenty Europeans and two or three hundred Malays here, as well as some Chinese. The latter are good workers and get fifteen marks a month, whilst the Papuans get five to six a month. There are good capuc plantations.
There is an hotel kept by a Chinaman. It serves as a club and has a Kegelbahn, so is quite Germanic.
We visited a building where live the Javanese and Malay work-people. The married couples and women's building contained many large beds hung with mosquito curtains, and gay with frilled pillow-cases tied up with ribbons, and all was ​very clean and comfortable, though it seemed odd to have a number of beds for married people in the one room. Then we went to the boat-slip, where a vessel was being repaired and the New Guinea Co.'s steamboat, the Johann Albrecht, was lying. This latter has one of its masts as a funnel; I do not think I ever saw that before. They have another boat, the Herzogin Elizabeth.
Then a visit to Herr Kohler, where we had cocktails on the verandah—he had a nice, comfortable house. Captain Dunbar, a Herr Markgraf, and King Peter joined us there. King Peter greeted the Captain with a joke, the first time they had spoken since the row at Herbertshöhe. There was a momentary embarrassment, the Captain responded but coolly, so, as the angels were nervous about intruding, I rushed in with a silly question, which created a laugh at my expense, and all was right again. I trust the angels will remember they owe me something, for why should I do their work for nothing? King Peter liked and respected the Captain, I knew he was sore about having to part on unfriendly terms, and I had all along been trying to make peace without attracting attention.
Herr Kohler looked very well, but his brother, who is with us now as a passenger en route for a change of climate, looks miserably ill. I used my camera on every one and everything, and here on the verandah on some natives laden with the beautiful blue crown pigeons.
[I may as well say here that I took numbers of the most interesting, and in some cases unique, photographs whilst on this pilgrimage. When they were developed at Singapore it was found there was quite a small puncture in the camera, but enough to let in light that spoilt them all! This was a real disappointment and misfortune.] ​Whilst strolling about I saw a chief and his two small sons approaching the shore in their canoe, and on their landing went to interview them, and if possible buy the chief's fine breastplate and ornaments. This man was slim, but of good figure, and bore himself with such stately dignity that there was no mistaking he was "somebody." He and his sons were quite nude, devoid even of the string costume, but wore handsome ornaments and beads, and so looked perfectly dressed. Their want of clothes never seems a want;it appears quite natural, and, in fact, you never notice it. In manner, bearing, and mode of speech this naked savage was a polished, dignified gentleman. Many are like that. They will kill and eat you boiled or baked at a moment's notice, but that is a trivial detail.
In Sydney I had laid in a stock of beads to trade with. In my ignorance I imagined that pretty beads would be the thing, and some of my strings of beads were really rosaries. I was not aware that fashion is as great an autocrat in New Guinea as elsewhere, and that certain sorts of beads were alone in request, just as the fashion in nose or earrings varies. When, therefore, after entering into a polite conversation with this personage, I intimated a desire to trade my pretty beads for his shell ornaments, he drew himself up and intimated haughtily that they were not for sale. I told him how I liked such things and wanted some to carry to my far-off land for my many wives there. He gradually thawed, then became quite friendly, and even condescended to laugh, joke, and smoke with me. I asked if he would not like to have me for dinner, but he laughed and said I was too salt and would taste too much of tobacco, so I suppose he had had experience in such dainties. He took one of my rosaries, held it up, and pointed with ​a scornful laugh at the tiny crucifix attached to it. "All same missionary man that!" His boys liked the beads, and he graciously allowed me to give them to them and that is what came of my endeavours to "trade." A certain stony red bead was high in favour and quite the fashion, but the smartest of the smart, those who really wish to shine in society,go in for keys. They have just entered the Iron Age—anything in iron is precious to them. But the very highest mark of fashion is to wear a huge bunch of heavy, rusty, old iron doorkeys tied by a string round the waist and dangling at one side. It implies that at home they have countless large chests full of tobacco and other wealth, even though they have none. To see an absolutely naked savage come strutting along full of pride and affectation with a huge bunch of keys dangling at one side is very funny. Matches, too, they would trade anything for. A thing that quite fascinated them was my round shaving-glass, one of those mirrors that make your face look large or small according to the side you use. I used to flash this out of the porthole at them, and when they darted up in their canoes, would reverse it, and their ecstasy at seeing their faces broadened out was intense. They sighed for this thing, offered me their very canoes and all their contents in exchange. Unluckily I could not do without it.
It is curious to think that any of these friendly, interesting people you talk to with quite a liking would think nothing, two minutes later, of striking you dead with their axe, and then cutting you up and eating you. Numbers of the natives of New Guinea have probably partaken of human flesh.
Mr. Romilly saw, and has described in one of his books, a cannibal feast. First, the women wash the body and scrape the hair off, and cut the ​hair of the head, all laughing and joking. Then the body is placed on a mat and cut up with bamboo knives, the intestines being thrown to the women, who merely warm them up and eat them. The head is cut off and laid aside. Then the pieces of the cut-up body are wrapped in these packets are piled into leaves and tied up; the ovens and covered with hot stones. It is cooked for three days, then they feast on it. The brains, as a delicacy, are mixed with sago and served as an entree. Of course the flesh is cooked in various ways, and a good chef can serve up most enticing dishes. They sometimes have long wooden troughs almost as large as a bath for this much-prized national dish.
Here, as elsewhere, I photographed on arrival the usual scene of the white man kicking the natives right and left out of his way. They did not mind much, and only understand forcible methods. The Germans, when blessed with a little authority, are often not only autocratic, but sometimes a little coarse and even brutal; but, though in Sydney I heard tales of their cruelty and brutality to the natives, I never saw a sign of it, have heard nothing of it from any one here, and I am assured, and am content to believe, there was no truth in those tales. They are somewhat brutal in method or manner at times, but not often in action (despite the notorious ways of the Berlin police), nor are they in any way cruel, and, on the whole, treat the natives tolerably well. No one ever does treat natives really properly; but a very small community of white people governing many thousands of natives has to show frequently that it is master and must be obeyed. The natives understand force. At the same time they are equally amenable to another style of treatment and can reason, and they appreciate a ​sympathetic, kindly method as much as any one. They know by instinct their friends—just as a child or dog does—and can become attached and devoted followers.
But there is the native's point of view, which must never be forgotten. The whites enter his land, take it, kill him if he opposes, and just as often take his wife too. He therefore defends his home, life, and liberty as he sees an opportunity to do so, and commits a meritorious action in slaying the invader who would rob him of everything.
With Captain Niedermayer and the two English ladies from the second cabin I made quite a nice little excursion. The Captain got out a ship's boat, with the Malays in their best rig-out, and we rowed for a long time about the pretty harbour before we could find the entrance to a river, as the thick trees grew to the water's edge and over it. On at last entering this river it was a very beautiful and extraordinary sight. It was very winding, with trees and palms meeting overhead and growing all round and out of the river itself, whilst the fallen trees piled on top of each other were a mass of parasitic foliage—the whole a wonderland of tropical beauty, bathed in a deep green gloom, into which here and there stole shafts of sunlight. The effect was extraordinary and almost unnatural. We saw no alligators, but they must have been there amidst the swampy margins and fallen timber. Though so beautiful, it was uncanny, and so much of it! I quite expected to see some huge prehistoric reptile dragging its slimy folds in and out of the water and the riot of foliage. We exclaimed at the beauty of it, but were glad at length to get out of it. Our boat, with we white-clad people and the scarlet of the Malays, added to the effect of this curious scene. We emerged from all this at a tobacco planta​plantation called Jomba, where an Englishman, Mr. Peacock, entertained us at his bungalow. He was not in the least like an Englishman, and had lived for many years in Sumatra ere coming to New Guinea. The others returned in the boat, but I remained with Mr. Peacock to see his plantation. New Guinea cigars are now smoked all over Germany. There were many bananas and pineapples growing everywhere. He told me he had a high opinion of the Dutch paternal government in Sumatra and their other East Indian possessions. He seemed a quaint character. Later in the day he drove me back in his buggy by a tolerable track to Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen. There is a grass which in the distance looks green and inviting, but it spoils everything and cannot be kept down. It grows very quickly, and so high that a man on horseback can be concealed by it. They may in time find some method of exterminating it. There is no getting far inland from the coast, as it is not permitted, the whole country being unexplored and peopled only by cannibal savages. Very little exploration is for the present attempted or permitted, and the reasons for this are sufficiently good. It would mean murders by the natives, who could not be reached or punished, and so would breed much trouble. It is known that there must be gold in the interior, as natives bring gold dust to the coast. Several prospectors have been about; but if any large goldfield was discovered and made known, what the Germans fear is that there would be an inrush of diggers from Australia—which is exactly what would occur; they would come in hundreds, perhaps thousands. Every one knows diggers are a turbulent lot, and the small number of Germans would not be able to protect, control, or manage them. Not to permit ​this till population has increased and there is adequate control is good and sensible government, and quite the right thing. When, bit by bit, the Germans have explored the land, established tolerably secure relations with the natives, and accustomed them to white folk and their ways, it will be a different matter. Yet it is time that Germany sent out some properly equipped scientific expeditions to map out, survey, and explore the land gradually a thing the settlers cannot do themselves yet. There have been some explorers, but they have done little. Who knows what may be discovered within those mysterious, unknown recesses? British New Guinea has now been surveyed to a great extent, and it is time Germany knew more about her part, but through responsible people. It is so fascinating to gaze at the forest-clad mountains and wonder and wonder what is there—perhaps some ruined ancient monuments of an extinct race, something to throw light on the mysteries of the past.
Here at Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen we had to part from King Peter and Professor Biro, and I was very, very sorry to do so. They remain here till the royal yacht Mato arrives from Sydney, and then she takes them to Deslacs Island. King Peter promised to write to me, and I promised that if ever it is possible I shall go and visit his kingdom. He holds out all sorts of enticements to me, and I can picture nothing I would like better than cruising amongst those lovely isles. King Peter is a strange little character, has many good points, and an individuality of his own.
[When they arrived at Petershafen in Deslacs Island, they found that the natives had risen and massacred many of King Peter's "tame" natives, that his wife and children and some employees were ​all barricaded in their house defending themselves and withstanding a siege. King Peter wrote me an account of it, what he did, and how he "took a bloody revenge," killing so many of them with his own hand! He sent me a photograph of the Mato in harbour there. Some time after this, on my return to Europe, I saw a telegram in the papers that all the white people at Petershafen had been massacred, and the Mato seized, looted, and burnt. I have never heard more details, and I supposed King Peter perished with the others, but I have recently heard that he is living and well. I had sent out from Germany a box of toys for his children. I wonder if little or big savages are playing with them now? It was a great work to send that box, as no one in that German town had heard of New Guinea, and the post office people insisted it must be an ironbound case and that it must go by Africa—even when I showed them in their own post-book that there was a parcel post to New Guinea, and that it was quite simple to send anything from Bremen. When I told the fat old Frau who sold these toys something of the place they were going to she was amazed, and sent for her children to hear also; and when I asked how they had never read about it, she said in quite a shocked, reproving way, "We German women never read; only our husbands do that!"
This being at a time when all Germans were abusing "England" and her colonies, as well as her enormities to "the poor Boers," it gave me a splendid chance—of which I availed myself frequently—of saying, "From morning to night you abuse and talk over "England" and her colonies. You do not even know the names of your own or where they are. How then can you know about ours?" This dumbfounded ​them, and "Es ist wahr!" ("It is true") they cried in astonishment.
In winter, in Wiesbaden, whilst I was visiting a dear kinswoman, a number of people were present in her salon discussing the ways and means for augmenting the subscription got up in Wiesbaden for "the poor Boer widows and orphans being frozen to death on the open veldt in South Africa." I quietly remarked that it was very sad, but there could not be much freezing about it, as they were more likely to be broiled alive by the great heat. Silence and consternation fell on these people, for they had never thought of that, and I am afraid that, so far as they were concerned, that fund collapsed there and then. My hostess beamed on me and rubbed her hands with delight, as she had been telling me how much she resented the outrageous way the Germans behaved during that war.
Mr. Alan Burgoyne, M.P., who visited many of these places, including the Admiralty and French Islands, and who has many interesting tales to relate, tells me that in the French Islands dwelt a peculiar dwarf race who had characterirics of their own. At Friedrich Wilhelms Hafen—at Jomba, I think he met a Baron del Abaca who had been a friend of the missing Archduke " Johann Orth."]
Berlinshafen, New Guinea, December 1900.
We arrived at the important port of Potsdamhafen early in the morning. You can see it marked on the map.
It consists of one small house inhabited by two Catholic missionaries—only that and nothing ​more. Yet here the Stettin is decreed to wait always a whole day. It is nice and cheerful for the missionaries. Except their little wants, practically nothing comes on board and nothing goes ashore. We brought with us from the last place Herr Wilhelm Bruno, an agent of the New Guinea Co. He inhabits by himself a small island here lying at a little distance from the mainland. He has a house on it, and no strange native—on the pain of death is allowed to set foot on that island. He cleared and planted two hectares of it with cocoanut, and had some natives working on the island, but now, he tells me, there is no one. At first the white cockatoos came in crowds, and his trees were as if covered by snow at times; now he has driven them away.
From the ship the very high mountains rising abruptly from the sea presented a vividly green and smooth appearance, looking quite like good pasture for sheep. It turned out, however, that the green smoothness was the terribly high, useless, destructive latang grass. It is picturesque with the one little house and the palms at the foot of those steep mountains.
The captain said Herr Bruno could sell me many native weapons and curios, so a boat was got out and I accompanied him to the island and his house, which, though very small, was quite comfortable. He showed me what he had, and, under the impression that I was buying them, I picked out the best, rejecting the others, and felt rather foolish when he insisted on giving them all, and said he had never thought of selling them! What a lonely life he leads here—and always, too, in such danger from the natives that he must shoot any who even attempt to land on the island! ​I never heard that Herr Bruno shot one of them; but it was well known to all natives that the isle was taboo to them, so if they did attempt to land it was for mischief and at their own risk.
He wanted to return to the ship, so I begged to be left on the island alone and fetched when the boat brought him back in the evening. As it was quite safe he agreed, and there they left me, quite alone, with the run of a whole beautiful idyllic island all to myself. I rejoiced in this, and went about exploring, looking at the plants, rambling about, and now and again taking a photograph. It was a beautiful spot, and I longed for such a place of my own. You felt as if you could breathe in freedom there, and that no care could come nigh, with nothing but the sea around and the unexplored mainland before you. Hours went by, but I did not think of the time—I was too much interested. No thought of the natives or of possible danger crossed my mind.
Far out at sea rose to a great height the active volcano called Vulcan Isle. Rising from the sea directly, a perfect cone, it perhaps looks higher than it really is. We had passed not far from it. It has trees almost to the crater, and streams of old and new lava flowed down its steep declivities, whilst it was emitting much steam and smoke. At night it shows a dull red light. There are said to be twenty-four native villages on it, and the near island Aris is also thickly populated. Vulcan Isle is a very striking feature in this part. Lesson Isle, not far from it, has also a volcano. I believe no white man has ever landed on Vulcan Isle, and its native inhabitants are said to be so particularly savage and ferocious, and such ardent ​cannibals, that they are greatly dreaded by even the other natives. On the 13th March 1888 Vulcan Isle was almost engulfed by the sea, producing a tidal wave which caused much damage and killed two German explorers, Von Below and Hunstein, who were on the west coast of New Britain.
As I said, no thought of danger crossed my mind, alone, as imagined I was, on Herr Bruno's island. Picture then the start I got when, rounding a mass of rock, I came suddenly on three of the most appalling-looking savages one could conceive. They were sitting under a tree, and were covered with blood streaming over them.
For a moment we gazed at each other in amazement. What could they be doing, I wondered—were they having a cannibal feast? I walked right up to them, too interested to think of possible danger. They were got up in the most fantastic style as to head-gear, their hair tousled out to an enormous size; the lobes of their ears hung down to their shoulders with heavy ornaments thrust through. They were streaked with paint, their teeth were filed into sharp points fearful fangs really—and their mouths and gums were red and black with betel-nut. They were quite nude, and, as I said, streaming with blood. They really outdid anything in the way of real savages I had seen or conceived. "Well," I said, "you are a pretty lot; what are you doing here?" I do not suppose they understood the words, or rather I know they did not, but they promptly showed me what they were doing. They had found a broken soda-water bottle, and, with pieces of jagged glass, were shaving themselves, but tearing away skin and flesh, the blood simply flowing down, and so pleased with themselves! For a moment it gave me quite, a turn, but then I burst out ​laughing, and three great black caverns armed with fangs opened at me, and I witnessed a fine thing in the way of smiles. Something in the situation struck me as funny when I remembered that no native was allowed on this island, and there was I—a tourist with a kodak alone with these three choice specimens. It really was an appalling sight as they tore away at flesh and skin, grinning all over. I talked away to them, and we made signs and had quite an animated interview; but as we could not understand each other I cannot retail what it was all about. They were so pleased and I so amused, and suddenly I bethought me of the camera; here indeed was a chance not to be missed. I raised it gingerly, but at the click they all stopped and eyed it and me suspiciously. However, I laughed and nodded as I rapidly wound up the next number and pretended to show it to them. Each time, however, it clicked they looked disturbed. I showed them the landscape in its glass, but they appeared to make nothing of it. The sun was on them, they had a splendid background, and, as the photographers say, they "made a lovely picture."
[Alas for that camera! I regret this spoilt picture more than all the others put together. It would have been quite unique.]
Having exhausted all attempts at conversation, I wondered how I could withdraw gracefully, wondering also what was to be the end of this little episode. How easy for them to have seized me and bundled me into their canoe! However, they were in high good humour. We parted with many grins and waving of hands, and I strolled back to the seashore, thinking it, all the same, as well to be within sight of the Stettin. Presently the boat came, and when they landed I said to Herr Bruno that he had told me there was no one on the ​island, and I had just been photographing three terrific savages. They were all in a state of excitement at once; Herr Bruno rushed into his house for his " gun," and there was a regular stampede for the spot I indicated. I ran also, but intent only on protecting my cannibal friends. Fortunately—whether they had seen the boat or what I cannot say they had fled, were already in their canoe, and well out at sea. Herr Bruno called out things and made threatening gestures, but to my relief there was no firing, and I explained they had been perfectly friendly and "nice."
He said they came from the Vulcan Isle, probably on mischief bent, and knew they had no right to be on the island but I am sure they were in the most harmless mood. He wondered I was there to tell the tale. It might easily have been that he and the others had found a tenantless isle, whilst I was being borne over the sea to dinner—but not my dinner. I do not believe they even thought of it; we had been quite pleased with one another, and, could I have spoken their lingo, we would have had a fine yarn. There is more than one volcanic isle simply marked, on the chart as "Vulcan Isle."
I then went ashore in the boat to the mainland, where the two missionaries who lived in the one house which represents this " port " joined us, and we presently returned to the ship.
Leaving this place—much reviled by the captain, who hated the useless delay, and who, poor man, was really very ill with fever we passed other imposing islands, volcanoes active and extinct. Bosseville, a very high, picturesque, wood-clothed island with some enormous trees and cocoanut palms, had apparently a house perched on its summit. Looking through the glass there seemed no doubt of it, and the captain ​thought so too; but he said nothing was known of it, or of any one being there or having been there. I wonder if it really was a house, and, if so, how came it to be there, and who dwells in it? (Perhaps the missing archduke!)
We passed Lesson Isle and many others I, however, confuse them all of this being most beautiful, even fascinating.
Then a most extraordinary effect was caused by the waters of the great Kaiserin Augusta River which, 20 miles from land, rolled out in a broad, green flood, clearly denned against the blue of the sea, and actually the green waters were raised above the sea. Giant logs and trees torn from their place far inland were being dashed about like corks; enormous shoals of very large fish were leaping out of the water; whilst above hovered flocks of birds. There was also a shoal of small whales. The Stettin, on entering this flood, swayed about like a cork herself. Truly it was a strange and impressive sight.
This great river has been traced by the Germans to within a few miles of the supposed source of the Fly River, which flows through British New Guinea into the sea in the south, and is navigable for 500 or 600 miles. The Kaiserin Augusta, of course, has its exit into the sea in the north. Some gold miners have been prospecting about the Kaiserin Augusta and have found gold. It and the Raimu or Ottélie River are navigable for small steamboats. Exploring expeditions under Hauptmann Dallman, Von Schleinitz, and others in 1886-1887, and under Dr. Baumbach in 1896 and Herr Tappenbeck in 1898, have been made about this part. There are, or were, a few trading stations about the Raimu—the landing-place for which is Potsdamhafen—but that means one white man here or there. ​[Herr Fall in 1908 ascended the river for 200 miles. There is no bar at the mouth, which is about a mile wide, and it is from 300 to 450 yards wide for 200 miles. About 40 miles from the coast it broadens into a lake with islands. The navigation is unobstructed, there being a continuous channel of at least 50 ft. in depth. The coast is swampy, tropical vegetation merges into forest about 40 miles from the mouth, beyond that are alluvial plains dotted with timber, and wooded hills with plantations of cocoanut palms and bread-fruit trees round the villages. The natives had large houses and tobacco plantations, were of a peaceable disposition, and, altogether, it seems more than a country of promise. Whilst in Berlin in 1911, Captain Vahsen, the captain of the Deutschland, the ship of Lieutenant Filchisner's German Antarctic expedition, who had just come from New Guinea, gave me an account of some of the experiences of an exploring expedition he had accompanied up the Kaiserin Augusta River, and of a fight with the natives. Much knowledge of this region has been quite lately acquired by various explorers, including the members of the German and Dutch Boundary Commission, which completed its labours in December 1910. Very much, however, remains yet to be done.]
In Hansa Bay, near here, the natives destroyed a New Guinea Co. station, so an expedition was sent, which killed some of them and burnt their villages; but it had no real result, as the natives merely retired into the interior, and half the members of the expedition were down with fever.
On many of the islands, Balise or Gilbert Isle, Tarawae, Bertrand, and D'Urville Isles, the natives have fine plantations, and they are all beautiful isles. It is all dangerous navigation, as these seas ​are not properly charted, and there are no lighthouses or lightships.
These islands have native names as well as the various ones given by different explorers, on top of which the Germans have renamed them after their princes, ministers, and such people, so that it is confusing, and, looking at the map, one does not spot them easily. Some of the smaller ones are yet unnamed. As the natives know only the native names, they can give little information about them. Surely it would be wiser to stick to such native names as have some interest or meaning, or else to the names bestowed by the discoverers, whose right to the nomenclature of their discoveries should never be questioned. It is not fair of the Germans, who discovered none of them, to rename them in a somewhat unmeaning fashion.
We passed very close to two, one low-lying and full of natives, the other high and rugged. How I longed to stay in them and not pass on like this with merely a glimpse at them! Far out at sea, too, we saw a small native canoe with two occupants, probably blown away from land and drifting where they knew not—or perhaps they did know. We waved to them, but they took no notice.
At dinner that night Captains Niedermayer and Dunbar were very talkative, and became excited on the subject of German aims. They said they hoped the large island of Timor, which is partly Dutch and partly Portuguese, would soon become German; one reason being that it lay near the Australian continent. (To serve as a pin-prick; of course.) They are most desirous of getting by some means a footing in Borneo (again to be near their "dear cousins"), then acquiring the Dutch part of New Guinea, and they regard it as ​a certainty that one day the whole of the Dutch East Indies are to come under the German flag— all those enormously rich exploited and unexploited islands with their harbours so useful as coaling stations. This is to be attained by the Netherlands being forced or cajoled into joining the German Empire for her own preservation, by picking a quarrel with her and simply adding her to the empire, and then her famous ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, as well as her rich It is so East Indian possessions; are theirs! It is so obviously desirable from the German point of view that I wonder it is not constantly in the minds of statesmen—I mean politicians, for where are the statesmen? These ports and all these islands under the German flag, her growing navy, her great fleet of liners'using these harbours—this is to be the beginning of the end for us. So they think. Will it come? It is a very obvious aim—just glance at the map to see what it really means. What has Australia to say to it? Nothing at all; she ignores the idea. She is obsessed with the fear that she is to be eaten up by Japanese. There is no sign of the British flag anywhere; not a ship or a schooner have we seen flying it on this direct route to Hong-Kong and Singapore. I do not wonder the Germans deem it easy of attainment, despite British, Dutch, Portuguese, Americans, and Japanese. [As yet none of these things have come to pass; but they are coming nearer. The proposed fortification of Flushing, and the establishment near there of Krupp's works, are signs of what may be.]
I discuss all these things with them with interest, but without heat, though my feelings are strong on the subject. Indeed the aims and ambitions of Germany in these seas are what we talk and think most about. The Dutch make ​nothing of many of their rich possessions; unless they wake up and do so, all may pass from them. Yet a treaty with us by which the Netherlands agreed never to part with an inch of territory here save to us, on condition that we guaranteed her safe possession of her over-seas' lands and the absolute integrity of the Netherlands, would for ever crush all these German and other aspirations, and render New Guinea valueless to Germany; to attain that we must also attain a really great and powerful navy guarding our interests in every part of the world. So rapidly is German trade increasing and the augmentation of her navy and mercantile marine going on, that harbours and coaling stations are an absolute necessity to her. She must have them, she will have them. Much of the trade of the Dutch East Indies is practically hers, and she is endeavouring to push the German language everywhere, and the German flag is displayed wherever she can to teach all the native races what it is. From the German point of view this is admirable and perfectly legitimate; I admire her splendid progress and her ambition, and only wish we were as far-seeing. But, unluckily, it does not suit our interests, and so each one of us is bound to oppose these aims by every or any means in his power.
[The latest German idea is to establish a fortified harbour and coaling station at or near New Britain. Look at the map, think over what it means, and do not forget that the project has been mooted. The idea of to-day is sometimes the fact of to-morrow. Germany has come late into the field of colonisation; all the desirable parts, or most of them, are in other hands, therefore to attain her growing, rapidly growing ambition of being a great World Power, she is undoubtedly compelled to "hustle round" and achieve her ​purpose as she can. It is unfortunate for her in a way, as naturally these aims are looked on askance by others; but she is not likely to desist from them, and there is no reason she should. It is almost naïve the way she is, with a gracious smile and her tongue in her cheek, insinuating herself into the Holy Land. Surely there are dreams somewhere of the crowning of a King in Jerusalem, the creating of a great legend? All those fine buildings, all those gracious visits—already it would seem she thinks she is there!]
We arrived at Berlinshafen, which is 180 English miles from Potsdamhafen, at daybreak. Since 1897 it has been a station of the New Guinea Co. It was first started in 1894 by Ludwig Karnbach. On Seleo he made the first plantation; he died 1897, and then the New Guinea Co. took it over. Berlinshafen is only a bay, on the east side of which lie the islands of Ali or Alij, Seleo, and Angeli, quite near each other. In the background is the thickly wooded mainland coast.
At Ali there was a great fight with the natives. The Germans came in the Moewe, and for some purpose found it necessary to land a party to fell and clear the thick trees and undergrowth at one place. They did not know that this was taboo—that is, sacred ground—and were at it unarmed, when suddenly they were attacked by the natives with spears, and many wounded ere they could reach the boats. They then retaliated by burning the native houses, killing many natives, and taking some prisoners. Captain Dunbar, who was then in command of the Moewe, is here to describe it. They swamped many canoes, and shot the natives swimming in the water. Hence here the Germans are hated and distrusted. You are amongst savages in a very wild state here. They come out ​from the mainland in their canoes very quickly. Their thick hair is often bleached with lime, they are gorgeous in big ears, feathers, shells, and nose ornaments, and decorate their faces, bodies, and legs with red, black, yellow, and white stripes, so that they are ornamental adjuncts to the scenery. On the mainland is, or was, a Mission Station, Leming, but between natives and fever it does not go ahead much. I am rather at sea here as to where exactly the Mission is. Tumleo has a Catholic Mission, but where Tumleo is I am not sure, as there is an archipelago of islands and coral reefs here.
Seleo is a flat coral reef clothed with cocoanut palms, and is, as I said, a New Huinea Co. station. Two Germans, Herr Behse and a carpenter, live on it. They are clearing and planting it.
As we approached this island a house or two and a small pier came into view. We went nearer and nearer. I happened to be leaning over the side, and looked first with surprise at the rickety little pier, then at the clearly visible bottom of the sea—how shallow it was, and getting still more shallow!—surely we were not going to that pier—why, we were nearly ashore! Suddenly there was a commotion on the bridge, wonder on every face, and we went full speed astern. Another minute would have seen us high and dry on Seleo! Some one on the bridge had been asleep, surely. We whispered together, but said nothing openly. We came to anchor quite a long way out. Next day I did make a remark on this episode, but every one grew so embarrassed that I changed the subject.
TEMPLE AT SELEO, NEW GUINEA.
To face page 192
The Captain took me ashore. Then a most curious thing happened. The Captain in his uniform, gold braid and buttons, and gold-laced cap is in the eyes of the natives a person of enormous importance; the “big fellow white master of the big war canoe”’ is what they call him. Also the Stettin is to them something very great indeed, though it does not deal out death like the Moewe. I was also in white, and carried a white umbrella; but I had no gold lace, and was nobody. Yet the instant we stepped ashore the natives came flocking from every direction, calling, “English-man! Englishman!”
It was really strange. They knew my nation-alityinstantly,and,flockinground me, quite ignored the Captain, who was half put out at it, half amused. They see, of course, no English here, save any stray ones who pass by in the Stettin.
We first visited Herr Behse at his house, who entertained us to wine and other refreshments, and then the Captain and I, escorted by about fifty naked natives, walked round the island. I was the attraction, palpably and openly; why or wherefore I know not. Was it the white umbrella—a sort of ensign of royalty with natives—or what? It could not be the umbrella, every one has them here, and we heard a story of a native who had been away and returned with a fortune in clothes and ​goods, to be instantly deprived of all by his village, with the exception of his umbrella, which none of them wanted. The Captain was as puzzled as I was at the welcome they gave me. If I looked at a flower, a piece of coral, or a cocoanut, they rushed to get it for me, and they hung on my every movement, eager to anticipate my every wish. They thrust things on me. The umbrella had a defective catch, and every now and then as I talked with the Captain it came down over my head like an extinguisher. This was ludicrous, but there was not a smile on the faces of our bodyguard; only when the Captain and I burst out laughing at each recurrence of this absurd thing, and they saw they might laugh without being rude, then they shrieked with delight. Then I gave one the umbrella to carry, and he strutted in front simply overwhelmed with pride, and the others full of envy, so they had all to get it in turn. It was very funny to see them striding along with the umbrella, throwing glances over their shoulders to see if I was pleased.
When we got to the end of the island we found the two other Englishmen there. I asked them if there had been the same excitement over them, but they said they had passed unnoticed, so that it was more puzzling than ever. Anyway, I was the recipient of all the honours that day. When we visited the village, where as usual no women were visible, I was conducted to a house and allowed to look in, and I am not quite sure that the hospitality was meant to end there. The women all giggled, and I am pretty sure were not
NATIVE WITH MASK AND SHIELD. NEW GUINEA.
(To face page 194.)
There was a fine, large, decorated war canoe, and into this we got, and were photographed by Anderson, one of the Englishmen. This canoe had a curious fibre chain affixed to the mast. The two Englishmen went bathing, and wild was the excitement over their white skins—evidently the Germans did not go in for sea-bathing—and all the natives must touch those skins and inspect them closely.
On returning to the pier—laden with rubbish showered on me by the still accompanying bodyguard—the German carpenter, whose name I am sorry to say I have forgotten, showed me his house, kept neat and clean for him by a Malay girl. This man was a magnificent specimen of what a German may come to here. Very fair, he was of course bronzed by the sun, and his tall, broad-chested figure seemed to be in the perfection of development. In Germany so tall and strong a man would have become fat and flabby; here he was the picture of health, and a striking advertisement for the salubrity of Seleo. Possibly the island was fever-free—I do not know. Later, this man came on board the ship and to my cabin, to present me with most beautiful native breastplates and other ornaments which I greatly prize. He was quite shy about it at first, saying he hoped I did not mind, but he had heard I liked such things, and wanted me to have them. I was as delighted with his gifts as I was with his kindness. It will be seen I have no cause to revile Seleo.
The crew were trading boxes of matches for cocoanuts, and we took on a good deal of copra ​and trepang. The natives were very stupid at loading the cargo――much cry and little wool. Timber and fittings for a house were what we landed here.
Then we went to the island of Ali, which is also a coral reef of much the same appearance as Seleo, but has a little hill on it. There is a Catholic Mission Station. A house was brought from Germany, and cost 5000 marks; the second house, built by themselves, cost a quarter of that. There arc many natives about—some hundreds on this or the adjoining island. A missionary had been killed lately by the natives, reason unknown, and their spears were still sticking in the roof of his house. Captain Dunbar described the fight the Moewe had here, which I have already referred to. It is curious that I can feel no sort of fear of these natives, but, on the contrary, like them and feel confidence in them, and it is perfectly patent they take to me―yet it has often been like this with other people, and in the end they have been suddenly attacked and killed. There must be strange workings in the savage mind; it has turns and twists we do not grasp, I am afraid.
In the evening we left Berlinshafen, our last port of call in New Guinca.
It is impossible not to wonder how all these beautiful islands and lands are still so little known. One would imagine that ships of many nations would be here exploring and seeing what was to be got. British enterprise is simply dead. Where is the spirit that led the old Dutch and Portuguese explorers in their quaint little ships to brave such perils as they did in the unknown In 1644 Commodore Abel Janzoon Tasman sailed along the northern coast of New Guinea on his way home to Batavia. In 1605-1606 the Dutch yacht Duyphen made two exploring voyages to New ​Guinea, and on one trip the commander, after coasting the island, sailed southward on through the west side of Torres Straits to that part of Australia to west and south of Cape York, marked on modern maps as Duyphen Point, thus making the first authentic discovery of that continent. In 1623, Arnheim's Land, now the northern district of the Northern Territory of South Australia, was discovered by the Dutch ships Pesa and Arnheim, and the master of the latter and eight of his crew murdered by the natives.
John Evelyn in his Diary gives us a glimpse of Dampier the explorer.
“August 6, 1698.—I dined with Mr. Pepys, where was Captain Dampier, who has been famous buccaneer, had brought hither the painted Prince Job, and printed a relation of his very strange adventures and his observations. He was now going abroad again by the King's encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 tons. He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew he had consorted with.” I wonder did they have for dinner “a hen with great content”?
The Spaniards, the Dutch, and the Portuguese did so much—now, perhaps, it is the turn of the Germans. The keys of the East are Singapore and Hong-Kong. Between them and Australia lie all these wonderful isles, yet not a single British ship is ever seen. We, too, have our share in Borneo, the largest island in the world next to New Guinea, yet it might not exist for all sign here of our being there. It is inexplicable.
I have always these brave old explorers in their quaint little ships in my mind here. How little has changed since they saw it, save where volcanic disturbances have altered the aspect of the land!—and such catastrophes have not been infrequent. ​There are the great mountain ranges—does no one want to learn their secrets? Nothing is really known of them, and their heights are mere matters of conjecture. You see them piling up height upon height into the distance, and they tell me that sometimes snow-peaked ranges are visible.
[Viewed from the sea, which of course makes a difference, they bore a more imposing aspect to me than did many of the ranges of the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, or Bolivia; but, in the case of the South American giants, I usually viewed them from a considerable height above sea-level. I saw no peak in NewGuinea which, after all,could be mentioned with magnificent Chimborazo as I saw it from the sea at Guayaquil; but none of them anywhere can ever have the interest for me that that untrodden snow-clad peak near the South Pole, which bears my name, has—and it, alas, I shall never see!]
The Owen Stanley range in British New Guinea we know something about, and its highest peak, Mount Victoria, 13,150 feet, has been scaled by Sir W. Macgregor: its other monarchs are Mount Albert Edward, 12,550 feet; Scratchley, 12,250feet;Winter,Douglas,and Knutsford,11,882, 11,796, and 11,157 feet respectively. The Albert Victor and Sir Arthur Gordon ranges appear to join the Bismarck range, and it is believed a great chain of monarchs stretches to the north, some of them estimated to be 16,000 or 17,000 feet high—the Charles Louis range is supposed to attain a still greater height. The Arfak Mountains, too, in the north of New Guinea are of great height. All practically remain unknown. [Mr. Pratt has made expeditions amongst the Arfak Mountains. He tells me they are very fine and the scenery superb, and described some parts as being clothed with beautiful rhododendrons. Mr. Pratt and ​his young son have made many very interesting journeys in Dutch New Guinea.]
We continued along this unknown coast, and eventually along that of the Dutch part of the island. Countless bits of timber, branches, and huge trees torn up by their roots passed us—the flotsam and jetsam borne down by the current of the great Amberno River which drains Dutch New Guinea. This current 13 miles out at sea is a river, and very deep. It has a large delta, and but only one of its mouths has been ascended for about 60 miles by van Braam Morris. We passed through its current in the night. An enormous shark followed us for a long time at this part.
The fascination of gazing into unknown lands is extreme and draws one strongly. I sat and looked at the Mysterious Land with a great craving to penetrate its recesses. To make known the unknown, to write names on the blank spaces of the map of this globe, is a thing that has only been done by men taking their lives in their hands and risking everything; and how countless are the lives laid down in this cause! But, had it not been for such brave, self-controlled, enduring, and fine-spirited men, how would the world ever have been known? To come nearer home, where, too, would be the British Empire? In my eyes the bravest and most heroic of human beings are the Antarctic and Arctic explorers, who have to and moral possess the very highest qualities in man—physical courage, endurance under terrible privations in terrible climates, resource, absolute self-control, and unselfishness; their daily life when marching in that terrific cold is the constant practice of the most heroic endurance and bravery, beside which the most daring deeds of bravery on the field of battle are but child's play. ​[Since these words were written it has been my happy fate to watch from behind the scenes the preparations for a great Antarctic expedition; to be allowed to see and learn what it means to bring such a work to the possibility of success; to have followed its fortunes with intense interest and admiring affection and the greatest faith, to be justified in every way by the brilliant success of Ernest Shackleton and his gallant men. “This is the man, and this is the expedition,” I said to myself and others the very first time I met Ernest Shackleton; through storm and stress I never wavered in my belief and my faith, and no one could ever have rejoiced more sincerely than I did when, the days of waiting and anxiety over, the triumphant news of their safe return and great success was flashed by cable from New Zealand. A great, a big deed, so splendidly done! Just the sort of story I loved, and done; too, by men I knew and believed in!
The world knows and has applauded the results; and the British Empire is proud of those men who planted their King’s flag so far beyond where mortal foot had ever been; but it is only those who know what led to that result who can guess how really great was the deed. It is a story to stir one how this young man conceived the idea that he would himself raise the sum of £50,000 or £60,000 by his own exertions, find and buy a suitable ship, find the men useful for his purpose, equip his expedition —thinking out beforehand every possible detail—and would then essay this daring and difficult task of surpassing all that any one, alive or dead, had done. Surely a bold and ambitious dream! Yet Ernest Shackleton did it—did it in less time, on less money, and with greater results than any other expedition, and brought his ship and all his men home safe and sound; his ​men devoted to him now as then, and ready and eager to follow him now whenever he calls upon them. No weeping mothers, wives, or sweethearts here—only joyful women blessing his name—no great disasters, but a splendid and genuine success due to the leader's great qualities, which almost ensured success ere he left on his quest. Such energy, spirit, imagination, foresight, and practical organisation were bound to take a man far. He was the man, and it was the expedition!
As I write these lines I remember how last night I sat in the drawing-room of his London house—whilst all Britain, nay, all the world, is acknowledging in him the man and the conqueror—and looked at him whilst he stood on the hearth, and, turning over the pages of the soiled little notebook he carried with him on his famous Southern march, read to his family and guests, here and there, a page of notes as he had written them daily under those terrible difficulties—those short, bald statements of those terrible days and hours when the end seemed very near, and famine, sickness, and fatigue held sway—bringing so vividly before us that awful time—I looked at him and round the pleasant, flower-decked, firelit room—yes, he was the man, and it was the expedition.
Brave men make brave women. Her ladyship might be sitting there proud, happy, and at ease now; but I had seen and known what a woman's brave and cheerful spirit can mean in days of deep anxiety and waiting—that waiting—and had known how splendidly some of those women had played their part, which is no light one. If we had little to say when that reading was done, it was not that we were stupid, for thought and memory were busy—indeed, that success had been well won—indeed, it had all been well done! ​It is a beautiful story to those who know it—a thing like the gallant deeds of old; and if they laugh at me because I love their brave and sturdy little old ship, and think her the “biggest ship afloat”—well, I do not mind; and it is not only the ship I love. I longed to see this thing done; these Britons did it, and in the very way I wished it should be done—no wonder, then, that Ernest Shackleton, his merry men, and his brave little ship have a particular hold on my heart—they realised for me a lifelong wish—and to me it is a joy I do not care to hide that they believed in me all the time, and cared that I cared.
Those days, sailing through those gleaming seas by unknown lands, I dreamed dreams of such a thing as this, fearing that if it was to be I should not be here to see it; and, after all, the dreams have come true, and those who made them come true are men I believed in from the first—it is a beautiful, cheering, stimulating story for those who love their land.
Our “decadent” Empire cannot be quite dead—there are men in it yet who can do great things. I have a prophetic eye, and I look to the day when those who have to guide the destinies of our great Empire claim for the Empire the services in some high position of such a man as Sir Ernest Shackleton, with his unique combination of qualities, so admirably fitted to guide a ship of Empire to a safe and splendid harbour—no “little thing” is fit for a man who sees nothing in anything that has not obstacles to be overcome, rises in delight to tackle those obstacles, and goes at it with unwavering energy, spirit, and zest. May this wish come true!
It has been given to me also to hear the tales of what they have done or hope to do from the lips of other explorers—the gallant and popular French ​Antarctic explorer, Dr. Jean Charcot, to whom I have to give thanks for an honour that touched me deeply; my good friend, Lieutenant Wilhelm Filchner, leader of the German Antarctic expedition with the ship Deutschland; and many a talk have I had with my friend, Dr. Douglas Mawson, who is going to, I am sure, make the name of Australia renowned in Polar annals also. My best good wishes go with them all, and they know it. Then we have Captain Scott at work also, and a letter from his expedition when it touched the Antarctic continent has reached me, so that my interest never fades.
I have faith, too, that the secrets of the mysterious land, what lies hidden within the recesses of unknown New Guinea, will ere long be revealed to the world.]
Polar explorers are my heroes, and in a lesser degree I honour those other explorers who have made known to us the world, and particularly those gallant men of long ago, who in their little frail ships faced every danger and hardship with such indomitable spirit. It is wonderful what they did, simply wonderful, and it is for mankind in general they did it. Dampier, Tasman, Cook; and all those others are never out of one's thoughts here, and yet in the long space of time since they lived and died how very little has been done in these regions—and yet how much! Think of Australia alone—parts of which I have seen grow under my own eyes, and have even known some of the first white men who ever set foot on a part of its shores—the now colony of Victoria—and made of it in such a short space of time so great a land. The story of that fine race, the Hentys, ought to stimulate any one. Some of them I have known. They, the first white settlers in Victoria, and one of whom was the first white child born in that colony, did ​such great work for it that it could not be what it is now but for them and those others who did like them, andyet who ever mentions or remembersthem now, or gives them a word of thanks? The great fathers of that colony are almost forgotten already, yet their names are really written for ever in the history of the land, and in far future ages countless people will with pride try to trace their descent from them, and they will be honoured as they are not now. The man who explores and makes known an unknown part of the world does work that lasts for ever, for all who come after reap the results. No man is a hero to his valet; but that is not because the man is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet. So in the same way those who belittle or disdain explorers are only showing what they are themselves—the “little ones” of the earth, incapable of understanding anything beyond the feeble vision of their feeble mind. We cannot all rise to the great heights, but we can honour those who do, or else we dishonour ourselves.
Here, though they never realise it, every man is in almost daily, even hourly, peril of losing his life. Many lives are always sacrificed to build up a new country; it has always been so, and always will be so. Few people realise it, least of all those who long after reap the benefit of it. Yet every trifle connected with a new land is of interest, and each name mentioned is that of an Empire-Builder. What would we not give to know more of those Saxons who drove the Romans from our shores—their names, what they did, what they saw, what they thought? What would we not give to know what race, if any, conquered the wild aborigines of Scotland, lived with them, bred with them, and made the race what it is?
No one cares at the time, but one hundred, five hundred, or one thousand years hence will they ​not wonder about the people who first made known these beautiful lands around me as I write? To me, each one of these First Men has a surpassing interest, unconscious as they often are that they are doing or have done anything. Scarcely a spot here have I seen but a white man's blood has dyed the ground; they are forgotten, uncared for, yet each one in losing his life did something, and a great deal, to make it a necessity that those who come after should be in less peril, and so bit by bit the land is won.
[Poor, simple Frau Wolff could never have dreamt that in the annals of New Guinea she is to be an historic character, one of the first white women in the land, and whose life was lost for and by it; or how through her fate men said sternly to one another, “It must never be again; we are to be masters here,and the lives of our women sacred.” For one white woman hundreds of black men die in reality; for it is never forgotten in such communities, and is in the minds of men when they wreak vengeance on their enemies, and it steels their hands and hearts against mercy.]
In the colony of Victoria I have known the original black inhabitants of the land; seen and where are they now? Vanished, as if they had never been! Surely a strange and terrible thing—the work, was it, of wicked, ruthless, greedy men, or simply the ordained will of God? It is a troublous thought. Here too it is to be the same; undoubtedly in no far distant time these Papuans will cease to exist. Are such races the so degenerated descendants of some mighty race of the past that the Creator will have no more of them and decrees their extinction? It is all perplexing. As to the converting of them to Christianity—by methods entirely opposed to the teaching of Christ—the “civilising” of them, we all know it is a ​mere farce. It is not to be; it never will or can be. The mere contact with the white man is the beginning of their degradation and ultimate extinction. The natives of the Interior will likely survive the longest, and those of the Admiralty Group of forty islands seem to be a hardier and more virile race; but already, since the European occupation, on many of the islands less than a hundred survive out of thousands. Ere it is too late it is to be hoped that ethnologists will make thorough studies of the survivors, and all their customs, ways, and beliefs be noted down.
[I have discussed this Papuan subject with Miss Pullen-Burry, who is greatly interested in anthropology, and who has written on these matters, and what this clever lady and many others have noted ought to be carefully preserved. I remember once when I was a guest of this lady at a “travel dinner” in a London club where she occupied the chair and made an excellent and witty speech, she announced that she thought the best employment for a ladies’ club was “the study of man”!]
We discuss these questions concerning the origin and the ultimate fate of the natives here, but never come to any satisfactory conclusion. The “ferocious savages” are, after all, doing what we all would do—fighting for their very existence. No wonder they massacre, when they can, the people who would snatch it from them, and who have seized upon their land. Yet, right or wrong, the white man has to be master; we know that. As to making Christians of them, it is ridiculous; they may profess to be, but they never really understand and never will; there is nothing to make them understand. They see the so-called Christians, the Protestants and Catholics, jealous of and hating each other, unable to work together ​and practising few of the Christian precepts they profess to teach. The natives see through it all; they are clever enough for that; but it pays them, to be on the right side of the “missionary man” they in their hearts really scorn. It is truly astounding to see a couple of missionaries in dead earnest “converting” a mass of people not one word of whose language they understand, and actually thinking they are doing it; what sorts of minds can they have to so shut out all reason? I have seen missionaries give printed tracts to the heathen, who cannot read, and if they could, do not know the language in which the tract is printed; and yet the givers really believe they are “doing the Lord's work,” and are unctuously satisfied with themselves! My brain cannot comprehend such things. The teachings of Christ must be borne in upon the heathen not by words but by deeds, and it is in their own lives the Christians are to exemplify what Christ taught. Many are good men and women according to their lights—but how feeble the lights!
Yet it must not be supposed that in saying this I mean to cast either ridicule or contempt on the great band of missionaries, male and female, and of all denominations, who in so many lands have given up all they possess—a very easy thing to talk about, but a very difficult thing to do—all the joys, comforts, and pleasures of this world, to go forth cheerfully and with steadfast and enduring courage to carry out the mission they felt themselves destined for, often perilling their lives daily. I have seen enough of them to know how great is sometimes their civilising influence, how earnest and sincere they are, and what benefits have resulted to their countries and the world generally through their self-sacrifice. They sow the seed perhaps at times in barren soil and it ​never takes root; but it is not always so, and if at times mistaken in methods and deeds, and singularly devoid of tact, the greater generality of them are men and women who are worthy of all honour, and are deeply in earnest over their work. Missionary enterprise has played a very large part in the progress of the British Empire and it should not be forgotten, nor should those heroic lives and deaths which have cast glory on their countries.
On the evening of the 18th we passed the Traitor Islands, a fine group, flat and wooded; then through Geelvink Straits between the great and fine Jappen Isle―with Bulteg Isle at the end of it―and the Schouten or Mysory Isles. In the ship chart Schouten is given as one great isle, with a supposed passage cutting it in two; but it appears more like a group, and there are many small isles with numerous inhabitants, as canoes and native villages could be seen on shore, and at night many native fires. All these are most beautiful and desirable isles, and I transfer my affection from one to the other.
[The Dutch have now a settlement at Merauke, on the mainland, adjoining West British New Guinea. There is there a barrack for one hundred and fifty Dutch soldiers, the ten-roomed house of the Resident, and also a house for the Comptroller. Though this is a comparatively new place, built by Javanese convicts, brought there to drain the marsh, Dutch gardens have been laid out, lamp-posts erected, and so on. Mr. Pratt describes it in his book. When he was there it was all protected with barbed wire and a ring of block-houses. He describes how one afternoon they heard a shout, and found some Javanese workmen had been decapitated by the natives with bamboo knives. The Dutch are there to co-operate with the British in dealing with the very fierce natives ​of that part. But that is far from where we passed by.
At Sekar, Fak-Fak, and other places along the coast from Merauke, the Dutch have established settlements, and at some of these reside Arab, Boutonese, and Chinese traders. Mr. A. E. Pratt tells us that both the Tugari and Alifuroes tribes are savage and troublesome. In his expedition in 1907 he was accompanied by his son. He states that relics of bygone Portuguese visits to the islands and coast are common, there being many brass guns. As this part is only a day's sail from Thursday Island in Torres Straits, and not distant from Port Darwin, no doubt in olden days there were more Portuguese and Dutch visits to North Australia than we know of; it is known the Malays frequently went there in quite remote days, and it therefore seems most possible that interesting discoveries may yet be made in the tropical jungles of New Guinea relating to bygone visits or occupation.]
In this part about the great Geelvink Bay there are no white inhabitants save, I believe, one missionary. They have gone there only to be murdered.
[To my great joy, these unknown lands of Dutch New Guinea, which I merely looked upon, have lately been visited by four or five Dutch expeditions and, with the consent of the Dutch Government, also by a British expedition. Dr. Arthur Wiehmann led a Dutch expedition in 1903, the results of which have been published. The present attack on the Mysterious Land will surely result in much knowledge. The British expedition was conveyed to New Guinea in a Dutch gunboat, and was accompanied by a Dutch officer commanding Javanese soldiers and convicts, the latter as carriers.
Three of the members of this British expedition ​are known to me—Captain Cecil Rawling, C.I.E., of the Somersetshire Regiment, the well-known Tibetan explorer and author of On the Great Plateau; Mr. A. F. R. Wollaston, author of one of the most readable and interesting books on Africa, From Ruwenzori to the Congo; and Mr. Eric Marshall, who was one of Sir Ernest Shackleton's three companions on his famous march to within 97 geographical miles of the South Pole.
This expedition underwent almost incredible difficulties for many months in an “impossible” part of the country. Dr. Lorentz, the well-known Dutch explorer—whom I also have the pleasure of knowing—made a most successful expedition to a great altitude in the Snowy Range and surveyed Wilhelmina Peak and the adjacent country. The British expedition returned home this year (1911), and the full account of the excellent work it did will, I hope, soon be published.]
Jappen Isle lies across the entrance of Geelvink Bay. It was in this bay that a Dutch ship visiting the mainland sent some of her officers ashore and they disappeared. On returning to Batavia, the Governor sent the ship back with orders to search everywhere for traces of the lost men, but with no result. No trace of them has ever been found. A Dutch boat sometimes runs to this bay and to other parts of their New Guinea territory, but there are no Dutch inhabitants.
The following day we were still passing along the Dutch New Guinea coast. The bold, high, rugged hills were clothed to the very top with forest, some trees standing out so conspicuously against the sky that they must be of enormous size. Beyond them towered the cloud-wrapped summits of huge mountains—the Arfak Range, I suppose. There was such a heavy swell on that the ship took to rolling in the most annoying manner, ​and rolled many tottery forms into a desirable seclusion. We passed through immense shoals of very fine large fish all springing out of the water, and saw a horn pike, a large fish which skimmed along the surface of the water like a fying-fish. Captain Dunbar said they used to shoot them, and no doubt they made good practice targets.
In the evening we entered Dampier Straits, passing many islands, and about 9 p.m. steamed through the narrow Pitt Straits between Batanta and Salwatti; but there are so many islands I confuse them. It was the first time the Stettin had passed through at night, and this “big white fellow war canoe” must have been an imposing sight to the natives, with all her electric lights gleaming from her portholes. The native fires sprang up at once on both sides of us, and were so close and numerous that they looked like the lights of towns.
It was on this night a Chinaman died, which annoyed the captain; and, of course, it was very disobliging of him to do an inconvenient thing like that, and at his age too! The Chinese are so fussy about taking their dead back to China that they would probably insist on taking him. It was out of the question under the circumstances, so the captain went to the dead man's wife, and though at first she howled and would hear no reason, he at last got her to consent to keep it quiet and to allow the body to be quietly buried in the sea at night. Having once agreed, she set to work composedly to dress the body first in white silk, then in black, then in green lined with violet, and the captain said she made him “quite beautiful.” When I came in to breakfast in the morning I was invited to go and see him; but a dead Chinaman before breakfast on a very hot morning was not to my taste, and I declined. He was quietly dropped ​overboard the following night. The captain was greatly taken with the Chinese widow; I had proposed that we should come to her aid financially, but on speaking to her it was found that she had plenty of money, that she thoroughly understood all her dead husband's affairs, had all his papers, knew all about banking, and in vestments, and so on—in fact was a most capable little business woman and most sensible about everything. Once she had had pointed out to her the danger of keeping her husband's body on board in such heat on a crowded ship she acted most reasonably; but when the doctor appeared and wanted to dissect the body—so like a doctor, always trying to get a knife in somewhere—she would have none of it, and had our sympathy in that. She afterwards seemed to feel a cheerful composure at finding herself a rich and attractive widow, and no doubt as to husbands, pictured how in China she would “plenty more.”
None of our passengers—the fever-stricken ones from New Guinea—were very lively, in fact were just the opposite; but we had Captain Jorgensen, who was going home to buy a new trading ship for himself, and Dr. Dunckler, of the yacht Eberhardt—both interesting men and full of information. I missed King Peter and Professor Biro, though the latter was so wrapped up in his scientific work that we did not see much of him. I remember somewhere a little bird came on board when we were far out at sea and was captured. We all cried out for the Professor to come and tell us what it was, but when he came he grabbed it and rushed away to kill and skin it at once, we all streaming after him in loud plaint, as that was not what we had intended at all.
There are always little incidents on a ship of get ​this sort to interest one. The captain came to me one day half amused, half annoyed. “Just look here,” he said, “here is something for you and your British pride. You know there are all those Indian coolies on deck, and that they have a flock of live sheep with them, which they kill and cook for themselves in accordance with their caste. They sent a deputation to me asking that I should give orders that they were to have the use of the deck cooking galley before any one else. I asked why they should; the others had as much right as they had; but they answered in quite a surprised way that of course they must have it because they were British subjects! The best of it is,” he went on, with a laugh, “that on inquiry I found the others—the Chinese, Malays, and all those—seemed to think it quite natural it should be so!”
“And what did you do?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, with a grimace and a shrug of his shoulders, “I said in that case they must have it. You British think you are superior to the rest of mankind and must have everything.”
“And you encourage us to think so,” I answered; “you give way at once.”
“It will not always be so,” he said, with a nod.
Nor will it be. Already the signs are visible that we do not know how to take strong opposition or rivalry, but get sulky under it.
Hearing my name called all over the ship one day, I rushed on deck to find every one pointing at the sea.
“Your island! your island!” they cried. And there, all by itself out on the sea; was the daintiest, dearest, cheekiest little mite of an island you could imagine! They all burst out laughing as they saw the wonder and admiration ​on my face. It was a tiny thing, a fairy isle foating in those blue seas all by itself. It had everything an island should have—little curving sandy bays, green trees, a tiny house with palms waving over it, a little cliff—in fact it was a poem! Who could live on it, or have thought of building a house there? In but a few minutes it was a mere speck on the sea.
That infernal cockatoo gives us no peace. It has been uncontrollable lately; and torn us to pieces. I came along the deck one day to see it on a rope which stretched from the yard-arm to our high deck. It was half-way along this, upside down, and hanging by one claw. If it let go it must drop into the sea. On the deck below stood the three Chinese and two German stewards, all their silly faces lifted in consternation as they tried to entice it to come down with bits of sugar and cake and much crying of “Cockay, preety Cockay!” but the wretch still hung on by one claw in the most absurd manner. At last I was about to unloose the rope and draw it across the ship so that if the bird did fall it would be on deck; but it saw at once, came along quite coolly, and on reaching the deck turned round, deliberately winked at me, and strutted down the deck convulsed with mirth and talking away at a great rate. I really wonder who that bird was in some former life? They say I spoil it, but they surely mean it spoils me, or what it has left of me, for I have not a square inch of unspoilt flesh about me.
Out at sea an empty canoe passed us. Somehow it looked so lonely that I bent over the side and called to it, “Where are you going, little ship, little ship; oh, where are you going?” But there was no answer, and in silence it passed on into the unknown. Then I was sad, for some​how it seemed symbolical of its makers; where are they going, the people of this poor brown race against whom is the hand of the white man? Where are they going? Only passing on silently into the unknown? Would they be happy with us if we let them? Does never into their minds come the thought that if the strange, powerful white people would but seek to know and understand them, they need not be a lonely race who in impotent silence must see all pass from them?
These poor untaught savages see their lands and homes torn from them, and if in their untutored hearts they seek to defend or retaliate, they are mowed down by the hundred; is it an equal contest? “Where are you going, little ship; oh, where are you going?”