nests, the clear yellowish-white ones, and the
dark ones. The former bring a price as high as twelve dollars per pound;
the latter only one-tenth as much. The best nests are found in the
darkest caves.

Bird-nest gathering is a perilous calling, and serious accidents are not
infrequent. The nests are gathered two or three times a year.

The northern part of Borneo is British territory, and the British also
control the States of Sarawak and Brunei; the rest of the island is a
part of the Dutch East Indies. The British are more interested in the
minerals and jungle produce, such as gutta-percha, rattan, rubber, and
birds' nests, than in the cultivation of plantations. The Dutch, on the
other hand, are trying to establish the great plantations there that
have made Java famous. Already these are producing great quantities of
sago, tobacco, and sugar.

There are no large cities and only a few ports with good harbors, but
German steamships make the rounds of the ports and carry the produce to
Singapore, the clearing-house of the East Indies.

Scarcely one hundred and fifty miles north of Australia lies Papua, or
New Guinea. Next to Greenland it is the largest island in the world, and
in many ways it is the world's wonderland. It was one of the first large
bodies of land discovered after the discovery of America, and one of the
last to be settled by Europeans. Most likely dry land at one time
connected Australia and New Guinea, for the animal and plant life of the
two are much the same. Even the Great Barrier Reef that skirts the east
coast of Australia extends part-way around New Guinea.

Of all the islands southeast of Asia, New Guinea is the most
interesting. It is rich beyond measure with things useful and
beautiful. Sugar-cane grows wild from sea to mountain; wild oranges,
lemons, and limes can be had for the picking; and land adapted for
growing rice, coffee, tobacco, rubber, cocoanuts, and cinchona is
plentiful. There are mountain summits clad in everlasting snow,
healthful plateaus abounding in delightful scenery, and dank coast
plains in which lurks the deadly jungle fever.

Dense forests cover most of the island, but the forest trees of the East
Indies are not to be found except here and there in the northwest neck
of the island. The famous eucalyptus abounds in the lowland regions; so
also does the nipa-palm. Pines, much like the kauri pine of New Zealand,
grow in the high plateaus. Most singular of all, in t