Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/227

Rh more. Yet here the Stettin is decreed to wait always a whole day. It is nice and cheerful for the missionaries. Except their little wants, practically nothing comes on board and nothing goes ashore. We brought with us from the last place Herr Wilhelm Bruno, an agent of the New Guinea Co. He inhabits by himself a small island here lying at a little distance from the mainland. He has a house on it, and no strange native—on the pain of death is allowed to set foot on that island. He cleared and planted two hectares of it with cocoanut, and had some natives working on the island, but now, he tells me, there is no one. At first the white cockatoos came in crowds, and his trees were as if covered by snow at times; now he has driven them away.

From the ship the very high mountains rising abruptly from the sea presented a vividly green and smooth appearance, looking quite like good pasture for sheep. It turned out, however, that the green smoothness was the terribly high, useless, destructive latang grass. It is picturesque with the one little house and the palms at the foot of those steep mountains.

The captain said Herr Bruno could sell me many native weapons and curios, so a boat was got out and I accompanied him to the island and his house, which, though very small, was quite comfortable. He showed me what he had, and, under the impression that I was buying them, I picked out the best, rejecting the others, and felt rather foolish when he insisted on giving them all, and said he had never thought of selling them! What a lonely life he leads here—and always, too, in such danger from the natives that he must shoot any who even attempt to land on the island!