692 ARRIVAL AT RALUM. 



A locality where Nautilus apparently abounded had been made known, directly or 

 indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Wesleyan Mission in New Britain, now 

 known as Neu-Pommern, an island of the Bismarck Archipelago which forms part of 

 the German possessions in Papua. 



Thither I resorted in the autumn of 1894, generously supported by many letters 

 and introductions from Professor E. Ray Lankester, Professor A. A. W. Hubrecht, Sir 

 William Flower, Dr Anton Dohrn, the Rev. G. W. Olver of the Wesleyan Missionary 

 Society, Rev. W. H. Dallinger, and the authorities of the Foreign Office in Berlin and 

 of the German New Guinea Company. 



On the way to Singapore I took occasion to call at the Stazione Zoologica at 

 Naples, where I had previously occupied the table of the British Association. Dr Dohrn 

 very kindly offered to give me an introduction to a gentleman, whose book I had just 

 been reading 1 , but of whose present whereabouts I had no information. This was 

 Mr Richard Parkinson of Ralum, New Britain, whose name is well known to ethno- 

 graphers, and whose house is a refuge for wayfaring strangers in those parts. The 

 hospitality shown to me by Mr and Mrs Parkinson, and their family, on my arrival 

 and during my sojourn in New Britain, was something of which I had not dreamt at 

 the outset of my journey, and their acquaintance with the natives, resulting from long 

 residence in the country, together with their readiness to do all in their power to help 

 forward my work, enabled me to commence operations without delay. 



As the ship approached the anchorage opposite Herbertshohe (Kokopo) and I obtained 

 my first near view of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, the rising coast with its 

 variegated sky-line, groves of waving cocoa-nut palms, scattered homesteads, with the 

 slumbering volcanic sentinels (the Mother and Daughters) to the right, presented 

 a fascinating prospect. 



One of my first cares, after the first blush of arrival was over, was to procure 

 a boat, and this was quickly arranged by the good offices of Mr Parkinson and the 

 obliging kindness of the Rev. Pere Heifer, acting chief of the Catholic Mission at 

 Kininigunan, during the temporary absence of the Bishop, Monsignor Coupe\ At this time 

 of the year (the middle of December) the north-west monsoon prevails, and dangerous 

 squalls of startling suddenness and severity are of frequent occurrence. Two days later 

 the worthy Father Heifer met his doom through the swamping of a boat, in which 

 he was proceeding to the island of Matupi in Blanche Bay, to procure decorations for 

 the Christmas festivities at the Mission. 



For a long time I placed much reliance upon the services of a man named 

 To-mangiau, who was, indeed, something of a rascal, a diable boiteux, one leg being 

 shorter than the other, but not without his points and a good swimmer. Shortly after 

 I made his acquaintance he let himself be tattooed with a broken beer-bottle: — two 

 concentric circles over each breast blackened with burnt cocoa-nut. I have also seen 

 the natives using chips of glass and fragments of obsidian as lancets for blood-letting. 



1 Parkinson, E., Im Bismarck-Archipelago, Leipzig, 1887. If I remember rightly, I owed my knowledge 

 of the existence of this interesting work to Dr Otto Finsch, whom I consulted at Delmenhorst before leaving 

 Europe. 



