expeditions, and have given special priv-| between the one hundred and forty-first ileges to a large trading company. The and one hundred and fifty-fifth meridians coast also has been carefully surveyed, and of east longitude. That act was annulled reports of the surveys have from time to by the British government; but, when in time appeared in the imperial white-books the following year, it was announced that published at Berlin. Several useful har- the Germans had taken possession of bors are said to have been discovered in Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, General ScratchHuon Gulf, and also the mouths of sev-ley was appointed special commissioner eral considerable rivers. The Germans seem to have formed a low estimate of the character and qualities of the aborigines, and they have not as yet penetrated much into the interior. Of British New Guinea rather more is known, and it is this portion of the dark island which is most attractive to us. In area it comprises some eighty-six thousand eight hundred square miles. It includes the D'Entrecasteaux Islands to the north, and the Louisiade Islands to the east and south of the extremity of the south-western peninsula of New Guinea. Some of these islands are thickly populated, and the inhabitants have the reputation of being cannibals. For what is known about British New Guinea, beyond what we indicated in our former article, the world is chiefly indebted to the Revs. W. G. Lawes and James Chalmers, missionaries; to Mr. H. O. Forbes, who had charge of an expedition promoted by the Royal and Scottish Geographical Societies to Mount Owen Stanley; and to Sir Peter Scratchley. When the German occupation took place, the claims of England only extended to a protectorate. But at the recent meeting of the Colonial Conference in London, it was arranged that the queen's sovereignty should now be proclaimed over the protected territory; that the governor should be appointed by, and be responsible to, the imperial government, but under the guidance and instruction of the governor of Queensland; and that the several Australian colonies should among them contribute fifteen thousand pounds per annum towards the expenses of the new administration, the rest to be borne by the mother country. The arrangement seems a fair one, for except to guard the colonies and to afford them a possible outlet for their surplus energies, there would be little inducement for Britain to trouble herself with so distant and doubtful a possession. It was in April, 1883, that Mr. Chester, the magistrate or governor of Thursday Island under the Queensland government, hoisted the British flag at Port Moresby, and assumed possession of all that part of New Guinea, with the adjacent islands, to go and assume jurisdiction "over the southern shore of New Guinea, and the country adjacent thereto, from the one hundred and forty-first meridian of east longitude, eastward as far as East Cape, including the islands adjacent thereto and in Goshen Straits, and southward of these Straits as far south and east as to include Kosman Islands." The line of demarcation was afterwards arranged with Germany. General Scratchley arrived in Melbourne in the beginning of 1885, but it was not until the following August that his arrangements with the colonies were so completed as to unable him to sail for the new territory. On the thirteenth of that month, he left Sydney with his staff on board the General Blackall, a steamer chartered for the purpose from the Australasian Steam Navigation Company. Calling at Brisbane, Sir Peter picked up Mr. H. O. Forbes, who had lost most of his outfit at Batavia, and was waiting in Queensland for a chance of getting across to New Guinea, which was duly reached on the 28th of August, 1885. In the following December, Sir Peter died at sea, from the effects of "New Guinea fever," and a valuable and faithful officer was thus lost to the British crown. What he did, and what conclusions he came to during his mission, we are now enabled to gather from his papers and journals, which have been compiled by Mr. C. Kinloch Cooke, and recently published in a volume by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. We find that Sir Peter Scratchley, with untiring energy, personally visited eighteen districts, twenty-seven islands, thirtyfour inland and sixty coast villages, in the new territory, so that, short as was his term of office, he saw more of British New Guinea than any single individual before him had done. First of all he fixed upon Port Moresby as the seat of government, and purchased a considerable area of land from the natives. This area comprised the best sites in the harbor, and nearly the whole of the sea frontage. Upon a portion of it a site was marked for government buildings, another for a township, and the rest was held as a native reserve. A chief called Boevagi was formally recognized as head of the district, and was | discover no motive for the murder, as Milinstructed to refer all matters of dispute ler had never been to the island before. and trouble to Sir Peter, as high commis. sioner, who further entertained some score or so of other chiefs, and taught them to look upon white men as their friends. Then he had to arrange a scale of port and customs dues, a system of registration of coasting vessels, the establishment of mail service, a supply of fresh water to ships, and other matters of practical business. There were also higher questions to consider and arrange, such as the sources and nature of revenue; the rivalries between the Protestant and Roman Catholic missions; the various unsettled land claims; the appointment of subordinate officials; while the alleged murders of white men by natives had to be enquired into. In September we find him writing in the diary which was kept mainly for his wife's information: "I see my way clearly about this whole New Guinea affair. It will not be unpleasant, and I find that I came here at a very good time. The S.E. trade wind is certainly a blessing. I begin to think I shall be able to stand it for two years, but not for longer. There are more chances of getting letters over than I expected. In time I shall have my own schooner, and establish regular communication." A fortnight later he again writes:"I am making a good start in New Guinea, but must devote next year to it. I do not now fear the climate. As for the blacks, they are easily met by firmness, justice, and caution. I am more than ever convinced that all the outrages are justifiable. I have heard horrible stories about the doings of the whites, and, please God, I shall let the light of day into them. A righteous cause I am engaged in, and that gives me zest in working it." As to the outrages, one example may be cited. On the fifth of October, 1885, a Captain Miller landed on a small island off Normanby Island, having with him some four men, with the object of erecting a "smoke-house" and fishing for bêche-de-mer. The natives appeared to be friendly, and collected stones for him; but suddenly two approached him from behind and killed him one braining him with a tomahawk, the other cutting his throat. Sir Peter Scratchley at once instituted an investigation on the spot, but could A sea-slug exported to China, where it is highly esteemed as an edible. The affair thus appeared to be one of -a "I am satisfied that these white traders are often reckless, unscrupulous, brutal, and piratical. They cheat the natives, and are apt to appeal to their revolvers. I cannot feel any sympathy for such men. They go where they have no business to; they are a thorn in my side, and I do not think the life of any white man should be risked in avenging their deaths." He was determined also to prevent the indiscriminate influx of speculators and adventurers, and so proclaimed that no person should be allowed to land in New Guinea without a permit. The officials at Queensland ports were also directed by the colonial government to prevent any vessel, without a permit, from clearing for New Guinea. And with regard to explorers, Sir Peter rejected every application for a permit to explore where he was of opinion that the attempt could only result in ruin to the applicant, or might cause a breach in the relations with the natives. He favored the opening up of the country by large companies, on a basis like that of the British North Borneo Company, and he granted special permits to a few private companies under certain conditions, which kept the parties well within the control of the executive. The disputes with reference to various claims for land put in by Europeans who had gone through some unintelligible form of purchase from natives necessitated the enactment of very rigorous rules to prevent further abuses. The ownership of land in New Guinea was very obscure, and it appeared to be divided among groups of individuals who might or might not be related by kin. Sir Peter Scratchley's idea was to establish recognized tribal chiefs through whom a title should accrue; but in any case he determined that, to ensure fair play and prevent fur ther disputes, no purchase of land from | deavored to render the people more capanatives should be allowed or confirmed ble of self-government by appointing a without the intervention of the govern ment. tribal chief in each district, who should not only be trustee for the lands and reSir Peter Scratchley, indeed, found the sponsible for the conduct of the inhabnatives of New Guinea without either so- itants of his district, but should also be cial or political organization, and he sought vested with some government authority. to give them both. Although superior in The scheme which he proposed, and which physique to the Australian blacks, they it is to be hoped his successor will comhave no such defined tribal system as the plete, was "a modified form of the Java Fijians and the Maoris; and, moreover, system, making the government-elected the difficulty of dealing with them is en-chief the recipient of a fixed annual payhanced by the great variety of dialects ment, and responsible for the safety of among them. Every village appears to foreigners, as well as for the maintenance have its own dialect, and thus commercial of law and order within his district." transactions are necessarily restricted by the difficulties of language. But the people do a considerable inland trade among themselves the tribes from the interior bringing food products to exchange with the coast tribes for fish, salt, and so on. The labors of the London Missionary The agricultural work is all done by the Society have certainly prepared the way women, the men as a rule being indis- for such a scheme as that we have indiposed to, and perhaps incapable of, sys-cated. They have some forty stations tematic labor. For food they rely upon bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, taro, cocoanuts, sugarcane, breadfruit, and other native fruits, and fish. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the Papuans are altogether devoid of enterprise. Near Port Moresby they make a kind of pottery. The future of New Guinea largely depends on the native question. As Sir Peter Scratchley says in his notes: "The only hope of making New Guinea pay is by the employment of natives, who can, by patience and care, be trained. If they disappear, others will have to be imported. Putting, therefore, the protection of the natives on the lowest ground, it will be seen that it will be cheaper to preserve and educate them. New Guinea must be governed for the natives and by the natives." In this respect, the duty of a humane government and the interests of capitalists coincide; for if the natives are corrupted or made hostile, the island will become the happy hunting-ground of unscrupulous adventurers; while, if they learn to repose confidence in their rulers, settlement will be possible; European capital may with advantage be introduced; and New Guinea will become the permanent and regular source of supply of tropical products to the Australian markets. This, then, is why Sir Peter devoted himself so persistently to win the good-will of the natives and to establish some sort of political organization among them. He found, in several instances, two or three rival chiefs in a single village; and he en Then, by means of the official chiefs and native teachers, he proposed to introduce the cultivation of rice and maize, so as to give the people an inducement to labor and to systematic cultivation. where native teachers are employed, and at their headquarters they instruct native students in the industrial arts. At Murray Island, for instance, students have built a schooner for mission purposes, under the direction of an English boatbuilder. The efforts of the missionaries and their native assistants have opened up communication along most of the coast line of our new territory, and also far into the interior, so much so that confidence in white men is beginning to be established, and a European can now go alone and unarmed for fifty miles inland from any point between Port Moresby and Hula in perfect safety. That is a stretch of about one hundred miles along the seaboard, which does not seem much in the vast area of our new possession; but it is something gained, and is more than can be said of any section of Dutch or German New Guinea. The Roman Catholic missionaries have been endeavoring to estab lish themselves in places where the London Missionary_Societies have been for years; and Sir Peter Scratchley regarded these efforts as extremely unwise from a political point of view, since confusion of creeds is productive of disturbance among primitive races. He persuaded some of the Catholics to leave, and to turn their attention to districts where there are no other missionaries. One reason, of course, for assimilating and employing the natives is the climate, which is unsuitable for Europeans. It is hoped, however, that, as the country becomes settled and the soil broken up and Another important export, which may be further developed, is that of coprah. This is the kernel of the cocoanuts, which are split and dried in the sun, and is used for making cocoanut oil, oil-cake for cattle food, and so on. In certain parts of New Guinea the cocoanut-tree is very years after planting, there is plenty of room for development. On some parts of the coast the climate is too damp for sundrying; but it is proposed to bring the nuts to Port Moresby, and dry them there. cultivated, the pestilential qualities will be modified, and perhaps in time disappear. Contrary to former belief, it is found that fever prevails also in the interior, although of a less severe type than that of the coast; but on the highlands the atmosphere is at times invigorating. With the exception of the district abundant, and as it bears fruit in three named Port Moresby, the whole of British New Guinea is well watered, and, besides the Fly River, which D'Albertis explored, there are several other important rivers. A range of mountains, running north and south, forms a sort of backbone to our territory, the highest point being Mount Owen Stanley, some thirteen thousand feet high, which Mr. H. O. Forbes is bent on exploring. There is a great deal of tropical forest along the slopes of this range and its spurs, and the valleys are full of deep, rich soil. In many parts of both highland and lowland the natives have cleared, fenced, and cultivated large tracts. Near the coast the vegetation is Australian in character; further inland it is more tropical. As regards minerals, Mr. H. O. Forbes, who has made many careful geological observations, is of opinion that gold will not be found to the westward, but may be found in the high country above Milne Bay, at the extremity of the peninsula; for the pebbles and fragments brought from thence indicate a similar formation to that of the New South Wales goldfields. Plumbago is reported to have been found at several places along the south east coast; but the mineral wealth generally of the island is as yet only conjectu ral. The forest wealth, however, is considerable, and for some time cedar has been cut for the Australian markets. There has been a good deal of waste in the operations, and a government forester has now been appointed to prevent the felling of all trees under a fixed girth. Some two or three firms are now also employed in the cutting and export of india-rubber, massoi (the bark of which has a medicinal value), sandalwood, ebony, and hardwood, all of which are abundant. Along the shores and islands the bêchede-mer fishery is prosecuted, but not apparently with so much success as in the South Sea Islands. The Papuans, in some districts, seem to have a superstitious dislike to handle the bêche-de-mer. Nevertheless, the exports of this article from British New Guinea are estimated to be worth about eight thousand pounds per annum. At the western extremity of the terri tory, pearl-fishing is actively prosecuted, and is sometimes very prolific. Lately, some attempts in the Louisiade Archipel ago have been very successful. Indigenous products are, besides those mentioned, nutmegs, ginger, pepper, spices, sago, hemp, cocoanut fibre, saf fron, canes, and rattans. The climate and soil are also reported to be suitable for the cultivation of cinchona, coffee, rice, sugar, arrowroot, cotton, vanilla, and tobacco; not of course indiscriminately, but in selected districts. All these are products which the natives could be easily taught to cultivate. For pastoral pursuits the country is not suited, although there are portions of the interior where sheep and goats might be grazed sufficient for local requirement. When a sheep was first landed for the use of the missionhouse at Port Moresby, the natives had never seen one before. But they have plenty of pigs, of the flesh of which they are extremely fond. The next greatest native luxury is tobacco, which every one smokes men, women, and children. Tobaccco is the sort of current coin at Port Moresby, for it is used to pay for almost everything in a small way, and without it the missionaries could not obtain either vegetables or water. Thus it is calculated that tobacco will become a very important article of trade in New Guinea. Naturally, other imports will be cloth (when the people learn to dress), hardware, ironwork, and such things. Pottery of a kind is, as we have already said, made on the island, and entirely by women. They use no machinery and no potter's wheel, but they have acquired great dexterity in judging the sizes and fashioning the shapes. They break up red and grey clay into powder, mix it with fine silver sand and water, and knead it into a large lump, from which with the hand, aided by a shell and a flat stone, they first make the top and lip of the pot, taking an old pot as mould for the body. They scrape and smooth the exteriors | family generally recline. A baby, and with stone and shell; dry the pots in the often a young pig, in nets suspended from sun, and then bake them in a fire. When the eaves, are gently swinging to and fro. red-hot the pots are taken out and sprinkled with tannin of a blackish color, extracted from mangrove bark; after which they receive a second and final heating. They are then ready for exportation, and that exportation is considerable. A trading party filling twenty large canoes, will sometimes start for the west. These canoes will carry about thirty men each, and each man will have about fifty pots made by his family. These six hundred men will thus have a total cargo of some thirty thousand pots at one voyage, which may extend for two or three hundred miles, and from which they will return with perhaps one hundred and fifty tons of sago obtained in exchange for their pottery. Mr. G. R. Askwith, who was Sir Peter Scratchley's secretary, has furnished some interesting notes about New Guinea, confirming the favorable impression which Sir Peter's diary gives with regard to the natives. The success of the Protestant Mission at Port Moresby has been very encouraging, and Mr. Chalmers's name has become one of power and peace. Peace indeed is said to be the great result of the mission teaching in New Guinea. The native religion is without definite form, and seems to consist more in a fear of an unseen evil power than of anything else. The spirits of the mountain are held in dread, and all kinds of small things, such as fireflies, are supposed to be spirits of evil. "There is no comfort or brightness in the native religion," says Mr. Askwith. "A dim supreme being called Aobada, whose province it is hard to determine, appears to hold the chief place, and then a succession of dreaded evil spirits, including the ghosts of the dead, follow in dismal order. All is darkness and fear." Mr. Lawes has established a school at Port Moresby, where "the three R's" are taught in Motu, and where English is also taught. Mr. Lawes has translated the four Gospels and several hymns into Motu; and Mr. Askwith says that he saw at the school copper-plate writing which could hardly be surpassed in an English national school. The following is Mr. Askwith's description of New Guinea dwellings: "The houses on this part of the coast, as also in the villages inland, are built upon piles, varying from four to eight feet in height. A few steps up a rude ladder lead to a platform, on which some of the Fishing-nets lie in a corner, with shells attached for weights. Nautilus shells, with grass streamers or hideous carved pieces of wood, hang before the bamboo door, which is low and narrow, and leads into the common room, where all the family sleep. The common room is about twelve feet by eighteen feet, with a bare flooring of rough planks, generally the sides of old canoes. Through the chinks the garbage is thrown upon the plentiful remnants of cocoa-husks below, for the pigs to eat or the sea to carry away. In the middle of the room is a fireplace, a pile of ashes on some boards, with a sparkprotector of bamboo stick hung about three feet above. On the central pole is hung a tom-tom, while here and there on the grass walls are suspended gourds for lime, bamboo pipes, tomahawks, adzes, spare grass petticoats, and net-bags. There is no window, but a movable shutter can generally be opened on the sea side, and plenty of air enters through the walls and the holes in the floor." Then as to clothing: "The natives certainly affect sincere simplicity in the matter of dress. The only article common to all the men is a thin string, a third of an inch in breadth, passed tightly round the waist and between the legs. A band of grass, which serves as a pocket for tobacco, knives, and decorations of cotton leaves, is for the most part worn upon the upper part of the arm. Some have headbands of red braid or small rounded pieces of shells, while a few wear necklaces of shells or teeth, and carved bones through the nose. Their hair, thick, matted, and long, is drawn up by a comb of bamboo cane. The women wear petticoats of woven grass, sometimes stained with a red hue. The married and be trothed have short hair; the majority are tattooed with a V-shaped mark and other designs upon the breast. Their figures are squat and not so erect as those of Hindoo women, as they generally carry weights on the back and not on the head." For the proper administration of New Guinea, a considerable increase will be needed to the machinery of government which Sir Peter Scratchley had at command; but the arrangement which has been concluded between England and the Australians has doubtless provided for all that. It may be some time before the new territory is self-supporting; but the result of Sir Peter Scratchley's observa |