Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/215

Rh 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