PART I BRITISH NEW GUINEA
CHAPTER I
Chiefly historical—Concerning certain discoverers, their aims and ambitions—The story of New Guinea, the Solomons, and New Hebrides, and some things that might be altered.
In these days when distance hardly counts, when the cry is heard that new outlets are wanted for capital, when there are thousands of unemployed crowded in London, and people are anxious to find adventure, eager to see new things, to conquer new lands, exploit new industries and gain more knowledge, it is worth while turning our attention to the South Sea Islands.
It is strange that so little is known of them, and that so few people have bothered themselves to visit them. A few missionaries, explorers, and adventurers have written about and spent a few months on them, but what is this when there are miles and miles of the most beautiful country crying out for people; there is wealth, both mineral and vegetable, waiting for the industry and enterprise {4} of good men to reap, and, above all, there is a delightful climate and a race of savages who in themselves repay the inconveniences of the journey.
The chief island is New Guinea, which is the largest in the world and contains some 340,700 square miles, much of which has never been trodden by white men. There are no sandy, dried-up districts in New Guinea or the Solomon Islands, and no long droughts; but rather a full fall of rain which makes the ground bring forth its produce in abundance.
There is land out there which some day will surprise people, and when one considers the difficulty Australia had to persuade the British Government to annex it, one cannot help laughing at the ignorance and short-sightedness of the men of those times. It was not until 1884 that the Government sent Commodore Erskine to the south-eastern portion of New Guinea to proclaim a protectorate over it, and then only after receiving a guarantee from the Queensland Government that they would undertake to find £15,000 per annum towards the cost of its administration.
The Queensland Government had, a year before this, already annexed it. They knew its value, and had it not been for their prompt action these {5} valuable islands would now all have been in the possession of the Dutch and Germans.
Accounts of the islands date back to 1512, but many things go to suggest that both the Malays and Chinese knew of their existence and had visited them long before that date. The first Europeans we hear of who sighted them were the Spanish sailor, Alvaro de Sacedra, and a Portuguese whose name is not known.
Prior to the arrival of Captain Cook, in 1770, there were numerous adventurers who gave accounts of these islands. Luis Vaez de Torres, after whom the Torres Straits were named, passed them in 1660 and sent to the world a full account of his voyage, but little notice was taken of it. We next hear of De Bougainville, the French navigator who arrived there in 1768; then came Captain Cook, and after him many others sighted the shores of New Guinea.