rmed linking New Guinea, the largest island in the
world, barring Australia, with the mainland of Asia. Of the last-named
island, the entire western half belongs to Holland, the remaining half
being about equally divided between British Papua, in the southeast,
and in the northeast the former German colony of Kaiser Wilhelm Land,
now administered by Australia under a mandate from the League of
Nations.

The population of Dutch New Guinea is estimated at a quarter of a
million, but the predilection of its puff-ball-headed inhabitants for
human flesh has discouraged the Dutch census-takers from making an
accurate enumeration, as the Papuan cannibal does not hesitate to
sacrifice the needs of science to those of the cooking-pot. Though New
Guinea is believed to be enormously rich in natural resources, and has
many excellent harbors, the secrets of its mysterious interior can only
be conjectured. The natives are as degraded as any in the world; their
principal vocation is hunting birds of paradise, whose plumes command
high prices in the European markets; their chief avocation in recent
years has been staging imitation cannibal feasts for the benefit of
motion-picture expeditions. But, unknown and unproductive as it is at
present, I would stake my life that New Guinea will be a great colony
some day.

To the west of New Guinea and to the south of the Philippines lie the
Moluccas--Ceram, Amboin, Ternate, Halmahera, and the rest--the Spice
Islands of the old-time voyagers, the scented tropic isles of which
Camoens sang. Amboin, owing to the fact that Europeans have been
established there for centuries on account of its trade in spices, is
characterized by a much higher degree of civilization than the rest of
the Moluccas, a considerable proportion of its inhabitants professing
to be Christians. The flower of the colonial army is recruited from the
Amboinese, who regard themselves not as vassals of the Dutch but as
their allies and equals, a distinction which they emphasize by wearing
shoes, all other native troops going barefoot. Beyond the Moluccas,
across the Banda Sea, sprawls the Celebes,[1] familiar from our
school-days because of its fantastic outline, the plural form of its
name being due to the supposition of the early explorers that it was a
group of islands instead of one. And finally, crossing Makassar
Straits, we come to Borneo, the habitat of the head-hunter and the
orang-utan. Though Borneo is a treasure-house