I saw the captain of one of the German New Guinea Company's steamers. He told me he was in the habit of steaming past the spot on his way from Finsch-hafen to the Bismarck Archipelago. Just after the disaster he was taking the accustomed route when, to his astonishment, the usual landmarks were nowhere to be seen. He therefore worked out his position, and discovered that there must have been some fearful agency at work to alter the configuration of the land in such a manner. The whole geography of the neighbourhood had been completely transformed. A vast expanse of land had been converted into water. The suddenness with which such calamities occur is astonishing. To-day everything wears its wonted appearance, but who knows what to-morrow may bring forth? what changes may take place in Nature? To-day a man is in robust health, proud of his strength. To-morrow all this has vanished, and the living man has become an inanimate mass. Our progress continued slow, until at last we sighted Cape St. George, the southern extremity of New Ireland. The locality has an historic interest. Ten years ago, in the latter part of the year 1880, the ill-fated expedition organised by the notorious Marquis de Ray landed in the vicinity. The Marquis de Ray was a French nobleman living in Paris. He formed a gigantic scheme for colonizing New Ireland, intending, as he stated, to create there a New France. He caused grand plans to be executed, showing the different lots or farms for sale--smiling farms, with paddocks of grass, ready for occupation, and whole families of French farmers and peasantry sold up what property they possessed, and cheerfully paid their money deposits in Paris, thinking they were going to a land full of promise, where they would settle on their newly-acquired lands with their families and grow prosperous. Poor deluded creatures! Little did they dream of the fate in store for them. Little did they know the state of the country to which they were bound, and that they were hurrying from the frying-pan into the fire. It is astounding with what ease people are gulled by the plausible representations of an adventurous schemer. Two large vessels, the S.S. _India_, and S.S. _Genie_, were fitted out for the expedition, each of them carrying about 300 emigrants. What a country to attempt to colonize! The Marquis had evidently picked out the most inhospitable place on the map. A wild, mountainous country, a deadly climate, and populated by dense numbers of ferocious and bloodthirsty savages! Not a white man on the island. And it was to make their living in such a land that these people had broken up their homes, converted all their possessions into money in order to buy farms there, and farming implements, such as ploughs, harrows, etc., with which to cultivate them. What did the Marquis care if they were all ruined, so long as he had the amount of their deposits safely in his pockets?