Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/188

146 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