Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/69

Rh said never a word for long, and then suddenly began to talk about Ireland.

I have been hankering after New Guinea and had vague ideas that I might be able from here to pay it a flying visit, but it is not possible. Sir Peter Scratchley is the High Commissioner; no one is allowed to enter New Guinea without his permission, and he is in New Guinea at this moment, [He died there after a few months.] Captain D says that if I return here and get permission to go, he will arrange it all and take me there in his schooner.

New Guinea, or Papua, is an island larger than Borneo, and next to Australia—which, however, cannot be called an island—is the largest island in the world. It has an area of 319,000 square miles; is about 1500 miles long by 450 miles wide at the broadest part. It was in 1883, two years ago, that Sir Thomas M‘Ilwraith, the Premier of Queensland, annexed all that part of the island which was not Dutch; but Lord Derby and the Home Government refused to sanction it. But last year, 1884, a Protectorate was established over 98,000 square miles of it, the Germans having 71,000 and the Dutch 150,000 square miles.

On the 6th November 1884 five British ships of war at Port Moresby saluted the flag as the Proclamation was made, and Captain James Elphinstone Erskine, commodore of the Australian Squadron, read out the declaration. Sir Peter Scratchley was then appointed Commissioner, and, as I said, is now in New Guinea, so I cannot go. [He was succeeded by Sir John Douglas, and owing to the discovery of gold it was declared no longer a Protectorate but a British possession, and on the 6th September 1888 an Administrator, Sir William Macgregor, was appointed.] This is the