alternate coaxing, bullying, cajolling, and threatening, induced them to forego their project. He then took the Motus off the reef to the Mission House, a boatload at a time, fed them, and finally crowned his diplomatic work by sending them to Kerepunu in the canoes of the very persons who had meditated their destruction. Thence they were shipped to Hula, where they chartered a lakatoi, and returned to Port Moresby. Sir Peter Scratchley hearing, when in Queensland, of this truly heroic action, determined to mark his sense of it by conferring a mark of distinction on the hero of the affair. Our guest Koapena, the chief of the Aroma District, although past the prime of life, is a fine stalwart man over six feet high, and decidedly the finest specimen of savage humanity we have seen in New Guinea. He stoops slightly with age, but his bearing is full of grace and dignity, and altogether he looks like a person to select rather for a friend than a foe. He is in full native dress, i.e., waist string, plaited armlets, and head-scratcher, or five-toothed comb. His luggage consists of a little netted shoulder-bag or knapsack, containing a lime gourd, a stick of betel pepper and a few areca nuts, the combination of which articles constitutes his favourite chew. The steward served him dinner in the saloon as soon as ours, which we now almost invariably take on the quarter-deck, was over. Amongst other things he was given some tinned asparagus, a vegetable which he certainly had never seen before. His appetite was wonderful, and he ate enough baked yams and pork to satisfy three ordinary people. The result of this late and heavy meal was that he could not sleep, notwithstanding the soft cushions provided for him in the aft part of the saloon, and I was witness to a midnight conversation equally quaint and ludicrous between this gigantic naked savage and Mr. Fort, the General's secretary, who often prefers to do his work in the cool of the night. The former plying his little chunan stick from his lime calabash to his mouth, and now and then taking a chip of betel, by way of variety, watched with curiosity the busy pen of the Secretary seated opposite, writing by the light of three candles, in addition to the saloon lamp. Scarcely a word was spoken, and certainly none were exchanged, the chief contenting himself with smiling and nodding in
