however, each family has its own little thatched hut, and these
are often built for defense upon piling over the sea, reminding
one of the manner of life of the prehistoric Swiss-lake
dwellers.

Nearly 12,000 natives are at present employed by the whites as
indentured laborers in Papua, their terms of service ranging
from three years, upon agricultural work, to not more than
eighteen months in mining. Their wages range from about $1.50
to $5.00 per month, and all payments must be made in the
presence of a magistrate and in coin or approved bank notes.

At every turn both employer and employed are wisely
safeguarded; the native suffering imprisonment for desertion,
and the employer being prohibited from getting the blacks into
debt, or from treating them harshly or unjustly. Their
enlistment must be voluntary and executed in the presence of a
magistrate, and, after their term of service, the employer is
obliged to return them to their homes.

One is impressed with the many manifestations of a fair degree
of efficiency on the part of the native laborers, who are
really good plantation hands and resourceful sailors. In fact,
trade has always been practiced to a considerable extent by the
shore tribes, the pottery of the eastern end of the coast being
annually exchanged for the sago produced by the natives of the
Fly River Delta. It is a picturesque sight to see the large
lakatois, or trading canoes, creeping along in the shadow of
the palm-fringed shores under the great wall of the mountains,
the lakatoi consisting of a raft composed of six or more canoes