Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/222

176 sympathetic, kindly method as much as any one. They know by instinct their friends—just as a child or dog does—and can become attached and devoted followers.

But there is the native's point of view, which must never be forgotten. The whites enter his land, take it, kill him if he opposes, and just as often take his wife too. He therefore defends his home, life, and liberty as he sees an opportunity to do so, and commits a meritorious action in slaying the invader who would rob him of everything.

With Captain Niedermayer and the two English ladies from the second cabin I made quite a nice little excursion. The Captain got out a ship's boat, with the Malays in their best rig-out, and we rowed for a long time about the pretty harbour before we could find the entrance to a river, as the thick trees grew to the water's edge and over it. On at last entering this river it was a very beautiful and extraordinary sight. It was very winding, with trees and palms meeting overhead and growing all round and out of the river itself, whilst the fallen trees piled on top of each other were a mass of parasitic foliage—the whole a wonderland of tropical beauty, bathed in a deep green gloom, into which here and there stole shafts of sunlight. The effect was extraordinary and almost unnatural. We saw no alligators, but they must have been there amidst the swampy margins and fallen timber. Though so beautiful, it was uncanny, and so much of it! I quite expected to see some huge prehistoric reptile dragging its slimy folds in and out of the water and the riot of foliage. We exclaimed at the beauty of it, but were glad at length to get out of it. Our boat, with we white-clad people and the scarlet of the Malays, added to the effect of this curious scene. We emerged from all this at a tobacco planta-