Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/221

Rh hair of the head, all laughing and joking. Then the body is placed on a mat and cut up with bamboo knives, the intestines being thrown to the women, who merely warm them up and eat them. The head is cut off and laid aside. Then the pieces of the cut-up body are wrapped in these packets are piled into leaves and tied up; the ovens and covered with hot stones. It is cooked for three days, then they feast on it. The brains, as a delicacy, are mixed with sago and served as an entree. Of course the flesh is cooked in various ways, and a good chef can serve up most enticing dishes. They sometimes have long wooden troughs almost as large as a bath for this much-prized national dish.

Here, as elsewhere, I photographed on arrival the usual scene of the white man kicking the natives right and left out of his way. They did not mind much, and only understand forcible methods. The Germans, when blessed with a little authority, are often not only autocratic, but sometimes a little coarse and even brutal; but, though in Sydney I heard tales of their cruelty and brutality to the natives, I never saw a sign of it, have heard nothing of it from any one here, and I am assured, and am content to believe, there was no truth in those tales. They are somewhat brutal in method or manner at times, but not often in action (despite the notorious ways of the Berlin police), nor are they in any way cruel, and, on the whole, treat the natives tolerably well. No one ever does treat natives really properly; but a very small community of white people governing many thousands of natives has to show frequently that it is master and must be obeyed. The natives understand force. At the same time they are equally amenable to another style of treatment and can reason, and they appreciate a