Strike fleet of pearl shell boats. Go down in diving suit about 160 feet. Bad job, starts the blood out of my ears. Get but one shell, which I will send to Arthur. Most of the divers are natives or Japs. One shipmaster owns and supplies about twenty diving boats. All shells opened on the ship. Average about one pearl to 300 shells. I buy of native four pearls for $6.25.
April 14.
Port Moresby only five houses. Bishop Stowigg, English missionary, here. Find three missionaries at each of these little ports. Became acquainted with Miss Tully from Brisbane, Australia. She is lonesome and shed tears when she bid me farewell.
April 15.
Land at Samaria. Find a native here who came from the interior, where the people go naked and build their houses in the trees. He speaks a few words in English and considers himself an interpreter. For two silver dollars I hire him to go with me anywhere as long as I feed him, and when through with him can leave him anywhere on the shore. We board the steamer here for the west, along the north shore. Everything and everybody looks and smells as though they had sat on the equator and fried ever since they had been born.
April 16.
At sea. My appreciative companions are a mother and four kittens, a captive young cassowary, about four feet tall, who the captain declares will eat his hammer and nails if he does not hide them, and three dogs. All small dogs around here will dive from the bow of a boat into deep water and bring up a knife or anything you show them before you throw it in. Dear little curs.
April 17.
Reach Kaiser Wilhelm's land and leave steamer. Am hearing terrible stories about the natives, men who eat an antelope at a meal, women with pompadours three feet high; also hear about snakes ninety-five feet long, but the stories come from natives who cannot count higher than the number 5.