314 AUSTRALASIA. 



'' palace," barracks, court-house, prison, and other structures symbolising European 

 administration. Port-Moresby is the only haven in British New Guinea where 

 foreign skippers are authorised to land their wares ; nor can any colonists settle 

 in the place without special permission. It is already connected by a submarine 

 cable with the Australian continent. 



In 1887 not more than about twenty whites, oflScials, traders, and missionaries, 

 were resident on the mainland of the British territory. Most of the dealers carried 

 on their operations with the natives from their ships without ever landing. The 

 explorer and naturalist, 0. H. Forbes, had founded a small settlement at Sogere, in 

 the interior, about 50 miles north-east of Port-Moresby, and it was from this point 

 that he organised his expeditions to the surrounding highlands. Grold miners, 

 hitherto attended with but little success, have also established a few camping 

 grounds at some distance inland, and a white traveller ma}' now wander alone 

 without danger throughout most of the southern regions in British territory east 

 of the Fly River. 



But it is chiefly through the action of native teachers trained by the mission- 

 aries that European influence is slowly making itself felt amongst the highland 

 populations. The Protestant seminar}'' at Port-Moresby sends every year a certain 

 number of young educated natives to the villages along the seaboard and in the 

 islands, and thanks to them the languages current in this region are already well 

 known. These teachers have been most successful especially as gardeners, and the 

 enclosures of the villages are already in many places well stocked with vegetables 

 and fruit trees till recently unknown in the country. 



Beyond Port- Moresby no European houses are anywhere to be seen except on 

 the Hula headland some 60 miles south-east of the capital, and in a few islets near 

 the coast. The Government, however, has acquired South Cape and Stacey Island, 

 at the south-east extremity of New Guinea, in anticipation of a future strategical 

 and commercial establishment in this region. Plantations have been recently 

 begun in South east Island, the chief member of the Louisiade Archipelago. 

 Here the Island of Vare, or Testé, has already become a station much frequented by 

 skippers engaged in the coasting trade. 



On the whole the British is much more thickly peopled than the Dutch section 

 of New Guinea.. In some districts, and especiall}' on the shores of Papua Gulf 

 between the Fly Delta and Yule Island, the population is very dense, large villages 

 following in succession from creek to creek. The Aroma country, south-east of 

 Port-]\toresby, is also well peopled, while the Louisiade and Entrecasteaux Islands 

 are fringed with hamlets round their periphery. The natives of these archi- 

 pelagoes, however, are much dreaded, and seafarers shipwrecked on their shores 

 have often been devoured by them. They have the i-eputation of being all 

 powerful magicians, of whom it is related that the}^ can tear out the eyes, the 

 tongue, the heart and entrails of their enemies without the victims' knowledge. 



Some of the tribes are of Papuan origin, and closely resemble those of western 

 New Guinea. These are for the most part agriculturists, while those engaged in 

 trade and navigation appear to be half-castes, the Polynesian type predominating 



