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[Page 42]
1914
These fellows were dressed up in sailors' caps, with a ship's name on the cap band, a cigarette tin lid punctured with a small hole & slung around their necks. They were obviously delighted & very proud of themselves. Of course, these soon spread the news among their fellows & very shortly we had more niggers than we had jobs for. The beach niggers had been employed by the Germans chiefly as police boys & also on the cocoanut plantations. The beach niggers dare not go more than 5 miles into the interior, because the country tribes would kill & eat them for working for the white man. The New Britain native is a very poor type, being very unreliable & very lazy, but, nevertheless, they are well built & muscular. The women are ugly, & do most of the manual labour.
Sept. 22
After a stay of a couple of days we left for Frederick Wilhelmshafen, the capital of German New Guinea, in company with "Encounter", the French cruiser "Montcalm", and the transport "Berrima" carrying 500 troops. The cruiser "Sydney" had been dispatched to the island of Angaur, in the Caroline Islands, with orders to destroy the wireless station there, which the Germans were still making use of. Our course to Frederick Wilhelmshafen was laid to the South of New Britain, the north side not having been reliably surveyed.
Sept. 23.
On the night previous to our arrival an incident occurred which occasioned some little excitement