It is curious that the Dutch always choose low-lying spots for their settlements. Some instinct of home seems to draw them to the flat lands, and better sites at a loftier elevation are neglected. Merauke, however, was chosen for another reason. The Dutch had been good enough to make their Settlement here to prevent the Tugeri from making raids on to the British territory. The thoroughness of the Dutch character, however, appears in the equipment of their station. When I arrived at Merauke the Settlement was only two months old, but it was already furnished with every accessory of civilisation, even including iron lamp-posts from Europe. It offered, in this respect, a striking contrast to the old British Settlement of Port Moresby. Merauke was built in a forest clearing, and the Dutch had already laid out gardens after the Netherlands pattern, and were raising vegetables in the coffee-coloured soil—the result of centuries of alluvial deposit—a soil so rich and productive that beans may be gathered three weeks after being sown. The gardening is carried on entirely by the civilians, the officers and men confining themselves exclusively to their military duties. As the Settlement had been established in the centre of a dangerous and turbulent district, it was protected with barbed wire defences and with a ring of block-houses on the landward side. The state of unrest then prevailing prevented me from carrying on my scientific work. I had come to Merauke to explore and collect in new territory, but the long-standing difficulty with the warlike Tugeri tribe was still acute, and the very day after I landed we had abundant proof of how unwise it would be to penetrate into the interior. On that day three or four Javanese convicts who were working on the edge of the clearing were heard to shout as though in distress. In five minutes an armed guard was on the spot, but all the convicts were found decapitated by the head-hunting Tugeri. The heads had been taken off with the bamboo knife so cleverly, that the doctor on board our ship told me that no surgeon with the latest surgical instruments could have removed so many heads in so short a time. This bamboo knife of the Tugeri is a very remarkable weapon. It is simply a piece of cane stripped off from the parent stem, leaving a natural edge as keen as the finest tempered steel. Nor was this the only outrage. A Chinese woman had died, and had been buried in the graveyard near the Settlement. The next morning the grave was found to have been violated, the head taken, and all the clothing removed. The Tugeri never showed themselves all this time, but it was known that they were watching Merauke from the dense screen of undergrowth which came down to the edge of the clearing.