Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/217

Rh and the prisoners looking after the place themselves, and seemingly quite proud to belong to it. We looked into the houses of the native policemen, who wear a uniform, and greeted their wives and children.

The fever is very bad here; all Europeans and natives get it. When Professor Koch was here in this year he said the ships should not remain at night it was too unhealthy.

A German, his wife, and two little girls were going home to Germany. They were all packed up and ready, but when the Stettin came in they were all too ill to leave. When she called again on the next trip, both the man and his wife were dead. Even here are no shops and nothing to be had. They must get everything by the Stettin, and Captain Niedermayer is a sort of universal provider for them all. Yet they are very proud of their progress, and excuse everything lacking by saying it takes four to five months, or longer, to get things out from Germany—ignoring Australia and Singapore nearer at hand. No one can have sympathy with nonsense of that sort—there is something so foolish, so little, so mean about it. There are about twenty Europeans and two or three hundred Malays here, as well as some Chinese. The latter are good workers and get fifteen marks a month, whilst the Papuans get five to six a month. There are good capuc plantations.

There is an hotel kept by a Chinaman. It serves as a club and has a Kegelbahn, so is quite Germanic.

We visited a building where live the Javanese and Malay work-people. The married couples and women's building contained many large beds hung with mosquito curtains, and gay with frilled pillow-cases tied up with ribbons, and all was