a more selfish lot of people than the Motu-Motuans. The Aroma and Motu-Motu people are certainly the most noisy folks I have met in New Guinea as yet, and my wife has named them the Irish of New Guinea. They will receive strangers very kindly, but this is policy, as they know strangers are generally liberal with their tobacco, &c.; but were the young people taken in hand and taught what is right and wrong—for at present they don't know what is right, except from their own point of view—they could be made a useful people; they possess intelligence, and are quick of comprehension. They are independent, because nature is kind to them; they need not worry for to-morrow, and when their larder is exhausted they need only to go into the bush, cut down a sago tree, which will supply a family with food for weeks; cocoa-nuts they also have in abundance, and on the whole the Papuans are the happiest people on earth, the country supplies them with all their wants, without much exertion on their part; poor mortals in civilization have to toil and struggle all their life long, and in most cases only for a miserable existence. The savage is indolent, blood-thirsty, and in every way opposed to the moral laws laid down for the guidance of humanity, yet the Creator provides more readily for the savage in New Guinea than for the civilized man.
