DISAPPOINTMENTS 
projecting roof and a fine verandah, under which the 
Comptroller entertained his friends. A little distance 
away were the open sleeping sheds of the Javanese 
convicts who had been brought there to build the 
Settlement and to drain the marsh. 
It is curious that the Dutch always choose low- 
lying spots for their settlements. Some instinct of 
home seems to draw them to the flat lands, and better 
sites at a loftier elevation are neglected. Merauke, 
however, was chosen for another reason. The Dutch 
had been good enough to make their Settlement here 
to prevent the Tugeri from making raids on to the 
British territory. The thoroughness of the Dutch 
character, however, appears in the equipment of their 
station. When I arrived at Merauke the Settlement 
was only two months old, but it was already furnished 
with every accessory of civilisation, even including 
iron lamp-posts from Europe. It offered, in this 
respect, a striking contrast to the old British Settle- 
ment of Port Moresby. Merauke was built in a forest 
clearing, and the Dutch had already laid out gardens 
after the Netherlands pattern, and were raising vege- 
tables in the coffee-coloured soil—the result of cen- 
turies of alluvial deposit—a soil so rich and productive 
that beans may be gathered three weeks after being 
sown. ‘The gardening is carried on entirely by the 
civilians, the officers and men confining themselves 
exclusively to their military duties. As the Settlement 
had been established in the centre of a dangerous and 
turbulent district, it was protected with barbed wire 
defences and with a ring of block-houses on the land- 
ward side. The state of unrest then prevailing pre- 
43 
