Thursday Island, so small a dot in the Eastern Archipelago that the tiniest mark a geographer can make on his map is widely out of proportion to its size, rewards the traveller well for a visit. Although one can walk round the island in an hour and a half, the locality is full of interest, and the pearl fishery is very engrossing for the observer. The boats of the fishing fleet afford a most picturesque accessory to the scene, and the harbour is full of life. Small boats dart about everywhere, and there is a continual coming and going. The large Chinese and Japanese steamers, of from 6000 to 7000 tons burden, are continually arriving at and leaving the Government wharf. The Europeans are most agreeable and hospitable. The sea round Thursday Island is a most wonderful colour—in parts emerald green and silver, deep blue varied with light yellow and brown, and everywhere perfectly clear. The tides, which at times flow with the rapidity of a mill-race, have been studied, but are not yet understood. They are tremendously erratic and very dangerous. Sometimes they run at the rate of seven miles an hour, and against this steamers can make no headway. The Torres Straits indeed, as far as Cairns, are the most dangerous seas in the world. It is, of course, very warm in Thursday Island, but the heat is tempered by the most delightful sea breezes. I could have enjoyed a longer stay than twenty-four hours, but that was the limit of our vessel’s call, and we left next day for Port Moresby, which we reached after a two days’ run.
MY CINGALESE LIEUTENANT, SAM, AND HIS WIFE AT THEIR HOME IN PORT MORESBY.
As we approached the coast we found that it presented a very striking contrast to that of Dutch New Guinea. Here the mountains came close down to the coast, which was rock-bound, but not cut to sheer cliffs. Inland the mountain ranges ran parallel with the shore line, range towering above range, as far as the eye could see, the whole prospect dominated by the magnificent peak of Mount Victoria, which sprang aloft into the azure to a height of 13,121 feet. Viewed from the sea Mount Victoria appears to culminate in a plateau, but Sir William MacGregor declares that it is really a mass of peaks.
As we drew nearer to the shore we noted unmistakable evidence of the drought, which had just set in, and which lasted for nine whole months. The vegetation was entirely brown, and everything seemed barren and burned up. The drought, it was said, extended as far west as the Fly River, at the 141st degree of longitude. Even at an altitude of 6000 feet, as I found afterwards, lycopodiums, orchids, and parasites were falling off the trees, and this, too, within the zone of humidity for New Guinea.
The approach to Port Moresby is dangerous owing to the reefs that encircle the coast, and accordingly great caution had to be used in navigating the ship into the harbour. The course lies east, then west along a certain known channel, and finally the navigator follows the coast for a few hours, when, rounding a promontory on his right, he catches his first glimpse of this anchorage. The Government post of Port Moresby, although picturesquely situated among rolling hills which slope down to the water’s edge, is in itself unpretentious enough—merely a collection of houses and offices of bare, galvanised iron, architecturally as insignificant as rabbit hutches. During the day the temperature resembles Hades or Aden, whichever may have the priority. Here the British official chooses to abide, although comfortable houses of sago, with thick grass thatch, cool on the hottest day, offering a delightful dwelling-place, might be had only a few miles distant. A paternal administration, however, prescribes galvanised iron, and there its servants swelter, patient and uncomplaining, after the manner of Britons.
Clustered about the Government buildings are various other buildings—the jail, which more resembles a pleasure-ground, shipping offices, stores, and the hotel. On an elevation at the farther end of the bay stands Government House, a pleasantly situated bungalow raised off the ground on five-foot posts. The best building in the place, as one might expect, is the station of the London Missionary Society.
Life at Port Moresby is not without its events, and one of the most noteworthy of its public spectacles, and one which I was fortunate enough to see on a subsequent visit, is the annual starting of the lakatois or huge sailing rafts, laden with pottery for trade in the western part of the possession.
Those who are familiar with the postage-stamp of British New Guinea must, no doubt, have often wondered what manner of strange craft is depicted thereon. The stamp, as will be seen from the accompanying illustration, bears the representation of a boat, or rather a raft, carrying two gigantic sails resembling the wings of some weird bird, and the whole appearance of the vessel is one that arouses curiosity. This is the lakatoi, the remarkable trading vessel of the hereditary potters of Hanuabada, a little village not far from Port Moresby. The hamlet, with its neighbour, Elevada, is built partly on land and partly on piles in the water; but while the land part of Hanuabada stands on the mainland, that part of Elevada which is not aquatic is founded on an island.
The inhabitants belong to the Motu tribe, and their numbers do not exceed 800. Their long grass-thatched huts rise from sixteen to twenty feet above land or water, and each has its little landing-stage on a lower tier. The main poles supporting these structures are of rough-hewn tree trunks driven down into the soft sand. At a height of from five to six feet above the water the natural forks of the main poles are retained, and across these logs are laid, forming a rude platform. Ladders of very irregular construction give access almost at haphazard from stage to stage. Looking through the village below the houses, the eye encounters a perfect forest of poles, and between the dwellings in this queer Venice of the East run little waterways just wide enough to let a canoe pass along without grazing its outriggers. The houses themselves each contain only one living apartment.