No Snakes In Herbertshoehe

A German Visionary Planned Progress in the Bainings

ONE of PlM’s recent visitors was a gentleman by the name of F. H. M. von Ploennies. Mr. von Ploenies has spent a great deal of his life in Germany, but it is p-erhaps not too far-fetched to say that h-e is the human manifestation of the Anglo-German influence that once wrote history in that part of the world we now call the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

He is a son of Friedrich Wilhelm von Ploennies, who arrived in Australia towards the end of last century and became German Consul in Queensland. In the early part of this century von Ploennies Snr. devoted almost all of his activities towards forming what he called the German-Australian New Guinea Company and in obtaining from the German Government a large con cession of land in the Bainings district of New Britain. He pro posed to subdivide this land into small blocks and encourage settlers to develop them by establishing “plantations, mining and saw milling.”

The plan came to nothing, because von Ploennies died in the Bainings of fever, in 1906, before it could be brought to fruition. (It is interesting to note that the Bainings, while still retaining the “marvellous potentialities” that von

Ploennies spoke about, is still one of the least developed parts of New Britain, although geographically so close to the well settled areas of the Gazelle Peninsula.) Our visitor’s mother was, before her marriage to von Ploennies Snr., Mary, only daughter of John M.

Macrossan, a member of the Mcllwraith government of Queens land which was concerned in the 1883 incident when H. M. Chester, a magistrate of Thursday Island, was instructed to raise the British flag at Port Moresby and take possession in the name of the Crown.

Through a French priest at Yule Island, John Macrossan had gained the information that Germany intended to annex New Guinea, and had passed the hint on to Sir Thomas Mcllwraith.

It is a matter of his history that Britain repudiated this annexation on the grounds that Germany had no intention of annexing any territory in that quarter. A few months later, Germany confounded the English quidnuncs by annexing that part of New Guinea which is now generally covered by the Trusteeship Territory.

The Australian States were furious; but it was too late.

Britain followed belatedly by annexing that part of New Guinea which had not been taken by the Dutch and the Germans —what is now known as Papua.

Macrossan is still, of course, an important name in Queensland, particularly in legal circles. The Macrossan Memorial Lectures are a memorial to the first John M.

IN 1902, Mary went with her husband, then actively engaged on his scheme to settle the Bainings, to sample the life in this New Guinea no-man’s land, taking with her her infant daughter. It is evident from the diary that Mary has left that she went worth rather in the spirit of a guinea-pig: to see what dire effects the place would have on female settlers.

Her adventure was to be for six weeks only—a stay-over between the visit of one German Lloyd ship and the next, before the family then carried on to Singapore, en route to Europe.

But it was plain that the idea of going to New Guinea was regarded as about as foolhardy an escapade in 1902 as a trip to the moon would appear to-day. But Mary was young, lively, intelligent

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lot too far removed from her ;ring Queenslanders and Is triumphantly at the end : stay: lid not see a snake, nor have i bitten by a spider, although sve they exist. The cannibals lot attempted to make a meal ;, although I have met many lave dined off a Missionary— st, so I was told. I was also that alligators surround the of Matupi and often snatch iwn piccaninny while it is ig or playing on the beach. ; say it was one of the usual ories told to new chums . . . sorry to leave . . . but had had the constant dread of ia ever before me I should been much happier. It was at triumph that, in spite of nhealthy reputation borne by nment House, neither baby had an attack of malaria j our six weeks’ visit—a fact made His Excellency very because it bore out his n that the position was a iy one.” y did not venture into the Bainings—but remained at rtshoehe, which present ition Territorians call Kokopo.

Germans had not then made I their capital; it was known atupi. and was apparently

the private preserve of an anonymous gentleman whom Mary called the “Sultan of Matupi He had, she said, the best cook in the archipelago.

Mary writes about their arrival at Herbertshoehe: “For' miles before we came to Herbertshoehe itself, the land was planted with palms reaching in many places down to the shore and forming part of the copra planta tions of the New Guinea Company and others . . . There are few soils around the world like the virgin soil of New Guinea, damped by copious rains, mellowed by heat and nourished by ages of decayed animal and vegetable life. The principal cultivation for export is copra. The coconut palms grow very easily, but it takes seven years before they bear fruit and during that time the waiting is very tedious for those of limited means.

Kapok is also grown and exported in small quantities; coffee, sugar cane, tobacco and rubber are also cultivated to a small extent.”

The Queenslander came to the fore when she wrote: “Cattle are very scarce owing to the country having been visited, like most others at some time or other, by ticks.

Nearly all had succumbed to the fever and consequently it was almost impossible to obtain fresh milk.

However, the settlers are not disheartened and have already commenced to strengthen their herds by the importation from Java

of funny looking cattle with a hump on the neck.”

Herbertshoehe appeared as an immense botanical gardens with large white buildings scattered here and there: The government offices and those of the New Guinea company; the Hotel Fuerst Bismarck; the stores of Forsayth and Co.; and the residence of Queen Emma (Mrs. Kolbe) . . .

“the first settler who came over from Samoa and took possession of the country.”

These were on the foreshore and on three separate hills behind were, respectively, Government House, and the houses of the doctor and the judge. “There is no harbour, the passengers having to go ashore in small boats rowed by natives, and landing at a small jetty.”

But in some respects New Guinea has not changed very much and Mary gives this account of the life tropical: “Soon after dropping anchor, and before we had had breakfast, the residents began to come aboard where they stayed practically until the departure of the steamer three days later. All suffered more or less from ‘malaria’ —that is what they called it but it was probably an attack of having consumed too much iced beer. In Herbertshoehe there is no ice, all drinks being warm. The residents, after recovering from the departure of one steamer eagerly look forward

to the arrival of the next in six weeks time.”

The development of international aviation has, of course, now removed most of the acute pleasures of “boat-day” from life in the larger Islands centres.

The Governor sent Mary a “beautiful black maid” who was

dressed in a lava-lava an* “short chemise” and who v strings of trade beads and d: teeth, with shell bracelets on' arms, plus feathers and a woo comb in her hair—and “sp herself with a hat.”

Our diarist records that it I astonishing the respect natives I

hat and that it was not mon for a man to be seen ng little more than what he orn in, and a bowler hat.” is one aberration of esian-European culture-clash lias, fortunately, died out — ed natives now being as rare eed-Europeans. aps some of our oldest n readers can remember the d called Herbertshoehe, of Mary writes; or the von ies’ scheme for Bainings settlement?