Some incidents of a lady’s life in the wilds of New Guinea. Miss Ker went out to Papua--as the country is now called--attached to a mission, and describes the many strange, amusing, and exciting experiences she encountered during her seven years’ sojourn among the natives, who, not so very long ago, were always fighting and much addicted to cannibalism--a practice which still prevails among the wild tribes of the unexplored interior. II. In many Papuan villages the visiting magistrates have raised one of the chief men to the rank of local policeman, rewarding him with the princely salary of ten shillings per annum (usually paid in tobacco) and two uniforms. The latter consist of a neckless tunic with long sleeves, and a strip of dark blue cloth covering the wearer from waist to knee. A flaming red belt lends colour to the costume. The Wedau policeman lived a peaceful life on the whole, though when an energetic magistrate swooped suddenly down on the village the functionary’s life was, for the time being, scarcely worth living. Luckily, the magistrate’s little vessel could be seen directly it rounded the cape and long before it had crossed the bay, so that there was time for preparations. Women set frantically to work with handfuls of stiff stalks, which served as brooms, and swept fallen leaves into heaps, which were immediately burned. Children buzzed backwards and forwards, carrying loads of stones and rubbish, which they threw into the swamp on the beach. “Gabemani” (Government) had ordered it to be filled in long ago, but the villagers preferred swarms of malaria-disseminating mosquitoes rather than exerting themselves to do away with the cause of them. [Illustration: THE HOUSE AT WAMIRA WHERE THE AUTHORESS LIVED FOR SEVEN MONTHS, SPENDING AN EXCITING TIME OWING TO “EVIL SPIRITS” AND NATIVES “RUNNING AMOK.” _From a Photograph._] The magistrate would find the village suspiciously neat and clean, and after trying a few cases of petty theft would sail away satisfied, leaving the policeman to distribute small portions of the tobacco he had received and to enjoy his hard-earned rest. Another of the officer’s duties was to make journeys into the interior and capture murderers, when such were heard of, and convey them down the coast to Samarai to be tried. I saw one insignificant-looking little man on his way to jail, whom I knew to have committed a cruel murder. A white man named Sexton, a “fossicker,” whom we had entertained at the mission station, had gone a few miles inland in quest of gold. One day, while seated at his midday meal, he was seized from behind and his throat cut. It seemed that a native of the village had died while working for a white man; therefore, in accordance with Papuan ideas of justice, the next man of that race who came along had to be slain in revenge for the native’s life.