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240 me and the other British, as one expects them to be. I made a joking remark to the Chinese, such as “How you likee this place? New Guinea man plenty eat ’em up here, Chinaman makee good dinner.” They would laugh uproariously over such remarks, and answer, “Chinaman welly good, but no good eatee—too muchee smokee,” and so on. I would dig the Malay or Javanese babies in the ribs now and again to make them crow, and their mothers smile, as they are beautiful, irresistible, dark-eyed little things—the babies, I mean, of course, not but what the mothers are very nice too. But I recognise now I never troubled much about any of them, and scarcely thought of the sailors—perhaps one could have done many things in little ways for them—been aware at least they were human beings—want of thought—surely much of the selfishness in the world comes from that? Now I feel I am a selfish pig, but I feel too conscious to be different. What is spontaneous is all right, what we force ourselves to do is a bore.

There is the monkey—ought I to have contributed to its ease and well-being also?—no, really, that would be too much! The deck passengers give it its daily due! “Preety Cockay”—ah! he makes up for everything, and no one can say I neglected him—I never got the chance. This introspective mood annoys me; it is so much better never to think. It is all the old Malay; he made me feel as if somehow I had been so selfish and unthinking.

December 1900.

The Celebes seemed a strange place to spend Christmas Eve, yet we had our Christmas tree— an artificial one. We had all subscribed a small