Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/216

170 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