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224 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



hangs) at their doors, and they do not encourage other 

 people to come and make use of it. 



There is a small force of native police under a Dutch 

 officer, and a few convicts are emploj^ed in keeping the 

 station in order. It may not be out of place to remark 

 here that the nearest Dutch settlement is at Fak-fak on 

 the S.W. corner of the MacCluer Gulf, seven hundred 

 miles in a straight line from Merauke. Besides these two 

 places the only other Dutch garrison is at Manokwari 

 (Dorei Bay) on the north coast, where there has been a 

 mission station for more than fifty years. Apart from 

 civilian and military officials, missionaries and two or 

 three agents of a commercial firm there are no settlers in 

 the huge territory of Dutch New Guinea. 



A former Resident of Merauke, who had somewhat 

 inflated ideas of the future of the country, estabhshed 

 an experimental botanic garden on the only patch of 

 dry ground near Merauke. Attached to the garden is a 

 large building containing rooms for three Europeans, 

 laboratories, a dark room and so on, which (it was 

 hoped) would attract scientific agriculturists and bota- 

 nists from other countries to come and study the local 

 flora. But no sane person wishes to study the flora of 

 New Guinea in the middle of a swamp, and already the 

 scanty soil was showing signs of exhaustion at the roots 

 of the experimental bananas, and the practically-minded 

 Resident was considering the removal of the house to 

 Dobo or elsewhere as a dwelling for himself, when the 

 contemplated abandonment of Merauke as a ''Residency" 

 should take place. 



Another interesting building at Merauke is the house 



