Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/258

208 never takes root; but it is not always so, and if at times mistaken in methods and deeds, and singularly devoid of tact, the greater generality of them are men and women who are worthy of all honour, and are deeply in earnest over their work. Missionary enterprise has played a very large part in the progress of the British Empire and it should not be forgotten, nor should those heroic lives and deaths which have cast glory on their countries.

On the evening of the 18th we passed the Traitor Islands, a fine group, flat and wooded; then through Geelvink Straits between the great and fine Jappen Isle―with Bulteg Isle at the end of it―and the Schouten or Mysory Isles. In the ship chart Schouten is given as one great isle, with a supposed passage cutting it in two; but it appears more like a group, and there are many small isles with numerous inhabitants, as canoes and native villages could be seen on shore, and at night many native fires. All these are most beautiful and desirable isles, and I transfer my affection from one to the other.

[The Dutch have now a settlement at Merauke, on the mainland, adjoining West British New Guinea. There is there a barrack for one hundred and fifty Dutch soldiers, the ten-roomed house of the Resident, and also a house for the Comptroller. Though this is a comparatively new place, built by Javanese convicts, brought there to drain the marsh, Dutch gardens have been laid out, lamp-posts erected, and so on. Mr. Pratt describes it in his book. When he was there it was all protected with barbed wire and a ring of block-houses. He describes how one afternoon they heard a shout, and found some Javanese workmen had been decapitated by the natives with bamboo knives. The Dutch are there to co-operate with the British in dealing with the very fierce natives