416 COMPENDIUxM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



imraber of inhabitants in the bay is about 4000. 

 Although fond of hunting, they are chiefly an agricul- 

 tural people, growing yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas ; 

 but a good deal of the cultivation is done by the women. 

 Maklai introduced maize among them with much success.- 

 From the head of Astrolabe Bay to Hatzfeldthafen, 

 the next station, is a distance of about 100 miles. The 

 coast is bold and precipitous, and without reefs, and the 

 land much elevated, though, as far as is known, without 

 ranges of very great altitude. The development of the 

 station has not been so much pressed as at Finschhafen 

 and in the Bismarck Archipelago, and occasional diffi- 

 culties have occurred with the natives. A certain 

 amount of planting has nevertheless been undertaken 

 with fair success. Inland from Hatzfeldthafen to the 

 north-west the country is promising, with wide valleys 

 and open tracts of lalang grass alternating with the 

 forest. There is a good deal of native cultivation, and 

 more or less trade among the villages. Sixty miles 

 farther to the north-west, the mouth of the Kaiserin 

 Augusta Eiver is reached, its fresh water colouring the 

 sea for some miles from shore. It is without a delta, 

 and has no bar interfering with navigation, and may be 

 thus considered almost as important a waterway as the 

 Fly Eiver. It has been ascended to a point distant 380 

 miles from the mouth, at which spot it had still a depth 

 of 10 feet. It is a river which thus affords access to a 

 considerable extent of country, and its value is still 

 further increased by its navigability for large ocean- 

 going steamers for a distance of over 100 miles. The 

 banks are high, but are periodically overflowed during 

 the rainy season. From the Kaiserin Augusta north- 

 westwards towards the Dutch boundary the land is much 

 flatter, these low elevations apparently Ijeing continuous 



