Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/233

Rh [Herr Fall in 1908 ascended the river for 200 miles. There is no bar at the mouth, which is about a mile wide, and it is from 300 to 450 yards wide for 200 miles. About 40 miles from the coast it broadens into a lake with islands. The navigation is unobstructed, there being a continuous channel of at least 50 ft. in depth. The coast is swampy, tropical vegetation merges into forest about 40 miles from the mouth, beyond that are alluvial plains dotted with timber, and wooded hills with plantations of cocoanut palms and bread-fruit trees round the villages. The natives had large houses and tobacco plantations, were of a peaceable disposition, and, altogether, it seems more than a country of promise. Whilst in Berlin in 1911, Captain Vahsen, the captain of the Deutschland, the ship of Lieutenant Filchisner's German Antarctic expedition, who had just come from New Guinea, gave me an account of some of the experiences of an exploring expedition he had accompanied up the Kaiserin Augusta River, and of a fight with the natives. Much knowledge of this region has been quite lately acquired by various explorers, including the members of the German and Dutch Boundary Commission, which completed its labours in December 1910. Very much, however, remains yet to be done.]

In Hansa Bay, near here, the natives destroyed a New Guinea Co. station, so an expedition was sent, which killed some of them and burnt their villages; but it had no real result, as the natives merely retired into the interior, and half the members of the expedition were down with fever.

On many of the islands, Balise or Gilbert Isle, Tarawae, Bertrand, and D'Urville Isles, the natives have fine plantations, and they are all beautiful isles. It is all dangerous navigation, as these seas