KAISER WILHELM'S LAND

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 September 1914, Page 6

KAISER WILHELM'S LAND

Kaiser Wilkelm's Land, was tne name given to the German portion of the great island of Pamia, a truly immense territory,, with an area of 72,000 square miles, and a native population ©f probably a quarter of a million. The_ metropolis is the coastal town of Fnednch Wilhelmshafen. By.means of strong companies under Government support and direction the territory has been very profitably developed; there are large.; German plantations, and the oopra and rubber trade is large and quickly increasing. The principal factor in the development of the country has been the ■■? German New Guinea Company a big Hamburg concern started thirty years ago with a capital of £1,500,000.. It owns 125,000 acres of land on the British boundary, the southern border of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land.

_ An Australian who visited German New Guinea says that what impressed him »more than anything else as his vessel steamed along the coast of Kaieer Wilhelm's Land was the mysterious «ilence of the place. For great distances there is not a sign of. life. * 'Your vessel,'' he wrote recently, ' 'is Sliding through the blue, sunlit waters along the coast, the northern section of South-east New Guinea. Inland, range upon range of mountains' reach far away into the distance. In the early morning the towering peaks are obscured by a thick blanket of mist that rises from the swamps and valleys. Later in the day the less distant ranges _ stand clear against the sky, * their sides made glorious by patches of green and grey and brow,n. The tropical vegetation, a denfee, impenetrable deep green wall of palms and bamboos, huge spreading banyans and strong, cruel vines in many parts grow right to the sea. The' wide, white beaches, so striking a feature of j the islands of the Eastern Pacfiic, are i ihsre rarely met with. The coastline is rugged, and often precipitous hills of great J height rise sheer from the water's edge."" "Along the coast there •are some good harbors, and there is one splendid river^, the Kaiserin Augusta, which has been ascended in a steamer drawing 12ift of water for more than 300 miles inland. There are enormous possibilities in this great tropic land, never again, it may be assumed, to be Kaiser Wilhelm's [ Land. •.-■'... "