Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/108

78 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