Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/246

196 and trepang. The natives were very stupid at loading the cargo――much cry and little wool. Timber and fittings for a house were what we landed here.

Then we went to the island of Ali, which is also a coral reef of much the same appearance as Seleo, but has a little hill on it. There is a Catholic Mission Station. A house was brought from Germany, and cost 5000 marks; the second house, built by themselves, cost a quarter of that. There arc many natives about—some hundreds on this or the adjoining island. A missionary had been killed lately by the natives, reason unknown, and their spears were still sticking in the roof of his house. Captain Dunbar described the fight the Moewe had here, which I have already referred to. It is curious that I can feel no sort of fear of these natives, but, on the contrary, like them and feel confidence in them, and it is perfectly patent they take to me―yet it has often been like this with other people, and in the end they have been suddenly attacked and killed. There must be strange workings in the savage mind; it has turns and twists we do not grasp, I am afraid.

In the evening we left Berlinshafen, our last port of call in New Guinca.

It is impossible not to wonder how all these beautiful islands and lands are still so little known. One would imagine that ships of many nations would be here exploring and seeing what was to be got. British enterprise is simply dead. Where is the spirit that led the old Dutch and Portuguese explorers in their quaint little ships to brave such perils as they did in the unknown In 1644 Commodore Abel Janzoon Tasman sailed along the northern coast of New Guinea on his way home to Batavia. In 1605-1606 the Dutch yacht Duyphen made two exploring voyages to New