Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/154

116 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 1910 the white population had not increased.]