Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/324

250 moment. The town of Tamora sank 18 feet under the sea, and out of 1200 people only 26 were left! This pleasant mountain is quiescent at present, but who can say what it may do? Pirates still sally forth in their phraus from here, and make for the Aru Isles and elsewhere. I wish they had flown black flags with Death’s heads, so that we could have distinguished them, as doubtless we saw some of their pirate craft. There are two Sultans, they of Sumbawa and Bima, and each of these towns has about 5000 inhabitants. These Sultans rule, but there is a Dutch controlleur and a garrison at Bima. The ponies of this island are noted as being very good.

Numerous isles, many uninhabited, lie between Sumbawa and Flores.

[A number of Dutch soldiers were ambushed and massacred in Flores in August 1909.]

People at home, who talk vaguely of the East Indies as well-known civilised islands, little dream how far that is from being the case, or what scope there is for trade and commerce with their large populations, and what folly it is to throw all this trade away to others—we, too, at Singapore at their door! Even Singapore has allowed a great part of her trade to fall to Germans, and their flag is fluttering all over the place.

If the great manufacturing and trading cities of Great Britain, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and so on, would wake up out of their obsolete methods, and their great firms would send out well-educated, clever, bright, energetic young men to all these rich and populous places to learn and see on the spot what the people want, and then establish agencies and make for them what they desire and send it out in British ships, how splendid the gain to country and individuals alike, and what an interesting employment for