INACTION AND AN EXCURSION 
same house, and in these cases the ridge pole is not 
horizontal. 
Before we came to Hula, however, we had paid a visit 
to Kappa-Kappa, one of the very few localities in New 
Guinea that show any immediate result of missionary 
effort and of a direct attempt to introduce the methods 
of civilisation. There resides the agent of the London 
Missionary Society, Dr. Laws, who has been perhaps 
longer in British New Guinea than any other white 
man, for his stay now extends over thirty years. The 
missionary has a fine house standing on a slight ele- 
vation and commanding a magnificent view to the 
north and south. A remarkably fine road leads up 
to Dr. Laws’ residence, and 300 yards away is the 
Christian village, built in detached houses along the 
rise and forming a regular street. We were very 
much amused to notice that the houses were all 
numbered, and that many of them had Scotch names 
inscribed on a little piece of wood fastened over the 
door. 
There were about sixty houses in all, and a 
really fine church and school. This last we visited and 
heard the children sing. They gave not at all a bad 
performance for coast natives, to whose discordant 
tones I have already alluded, and if my good friends, 
the mountain people, with their beautiful voices and 
their fine idea of music, had had the same training, the 
effect would have been little short of charming. We 
saw the place at a slight disadvantage, for the drought 
had greatly withered the vegetation, and Dr. Laws’ 
fine orange trees were all dead. The natives, I was 
glad to see, wore their ordinary dress, and no ridiculous 
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