During the night from the 20th to the 21st June we crossed the Sea of Papua and at noon on 21st the small reef of Bramble Cay came into view. This reef between the Great Northeast Canal and the Bligh Canal is the Northern entrance to the dreaded Strait of Torres which we had already passed on our journey from Java to Sydney. Now we steered again between the numerous islands made partly out of volcanoes and granite masses partly out of coral matter, through reefs and banks which fill the connecting water ways between the South Sea and the Indian Ocean. All these islands and smallest of islands, reefs and banks usually are of two types only: either they are only white coral reefs or dunes that appear in the sea as clear strips or they are islands with vegetation. On some of the larger islands appeared now and then native huts situated in the shadow of palm trees.

During the journey through the Strait of Torres we saw only a small steamer that we assumed to be on its way toward Numea and some sailing schooners which the mother of pearl fishermen tend to use in these waters to perform their as dangerous as profitable business so that the sea seemed quite empty even dead and „Elisabeth“ went its way alone.

As many of the flat islands and reefs in these parts of the Strait of Torres only offered very narrow passages and could not be detected in darkness as the sailor has no point of orientation, we were forced to anchor leeward of Rennel Island at 9 o’clock in the evening.

During the day we enjoyed splendid weather. The sea was glittering in a flashy light green.

Health conditions on board were unfortunately not good: Wurmbrand was struck down sick from the consequences of the last exhausting excursion. The after effects of the stay on the Solomon islands and also New Guinea showed themselves of numerous fever cases. At the beginning the daily increase of fever patients was 5 to 6, later 12 to 15 men, and now 5 staff officers, my servant, my orderlies, my secretary as well as nearly 80 men were affected by the disease. Especially the stokers and machine room crews seemed to be struck hard. The battery where they took the fever patients  looks like a big hospital!

A further inconvenience was the want of provisions: We could not restock fresh victuals either in Ugi or in Port Moresby. The supplies of fish, poultry etc. that „Elisabeth“ still possessed had gone bad and had to thrown overboard. Not a single egg was left and the meat of the few small oxen we still had and now butchered became rotten within only a few hours. But even if this had not been the case, we as beef-eaters would not have enjoyed it much as the animals had for the past few days been exclusively fed as „concentrated feed“ palm leaves and straw that had been used to wrap wine bottles.

Our ice supplies were already exhausted before coming to Numea and obviously could not be restocked at any of the stations.

In short, everybody on board — sick or healthy — had to suffer or spare something from the climate’s influence and thus had to overcome many challenges that can not be avoided on long sea voyages.

Links

• Location: near Rennel island, New Guinea
• ANNO – on 21.06.1893 in Austria’s newspapers.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater is playing „Der Geigenmacher von Cremona/König Oedipus“. The k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater is closed from 1 June to 19 July.

On the 11th, we were on the open sea; on the 12th, the Louisiades archipelago came into sight, and, in fact, first Rossel Island with Cape Deliverance, then the large island of Tagula that is surrounded by a crest of small green islands. Great Britain has also extended its protection over the Louisiades.

Early in the morning of the 13th we noticed the contours of New Guinea, namely the South-eastern tip at South Cape. We steered at around 40 sea miles along the coast to Port Moresby. But the coast disappeared again from view only to come into view now and then for a few moments as heavy rain clouds were staying over the island and blocked any view. The weather was very good, except for the rising temperatures in the cabins. During the first two days  there was wind from the North, that is out of an uncommon direction for that season but on the third day it switched to the normal South-east monsoon.

During the whole journey remarkably many flying fishes showed up partly in schools partly individually. Many also flew on board, were caught and wandered quickly into alcohol containers. Many different species of sea gulls were swarming around us especially large fully dark-brown birds  — a species of boobies (Sula piscator) — of which I bagged six pieces, three of them dropped on deck. Such a bird was also caught by the sailors during the night when it tired from the long flight and attracted by the many lights landed on a boat crane. The number and diversity of the sea gulls and storm birds in the tropical seas can not, by the way, be compared to that in the Northern seas which are vitalized by many flights.

The cleaning, drying and packaging of our coral catch in Ugi was hard work as the pieces fished out had to rest first for 24 hours in fresh water which we had filled into three boats and then put the corals in them. Then, the dead animal parts and attached algae were brushed off with a steam spray which made the forms glitter in the most beautiful white. Another 24 hours were required for the corals to dry in the open air and were finally packaged up in boxes filled with wood shavings. Unfortunately, the supply of wood shavings soon came to an end. Our engineer in charge working with Clam had soon invented a circular saw which was connected by a transmission gear to the ash removal machine and thus made new wood shavings out of crushed boxes and broken straps etc. The procedure took quite some time. Nevertheless, we were very happy about the invention, as it resolved a problem.

The expeditions in Ugi, namely the wading through swampy ground and connected to this probably also the coral fishing unfortunately caused multiple cases of fever among the crew.

Links

• Location: near New Guinea
• ANNO – on 11.06.1893 in Austria’s newspapers.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater is playing „Die alten Junggesellen“. The k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater is closed from 1 June to 19 July.

Even though we were ready to steam at 6 o’clock, we only left Selwyn Bay at 8 o’clock as fresh water had still to be sent for as we required large amounts of it to clean the corals collected yesterday.

Along the coast of San Cristoval we drove until we reached the most North-western point, Cape Recherche, where we took a South-western course towards the South-eastern cape of the Louisiade archipelago and turned towards our next destination, Port Moresby on the South coast of New Guinea.

During the whole day, the two large islands of Malaita and Guadalcanar remained visible. The latter one had mountains that rose to 2442 m, those on Malaita up to 1304 m and rich jungles. These islands remain also little explored and are inhabited by numerous fully savage tribes that are all cannibals. In this matter the inhabitants of Malaita are notorious as they even dare, driven by their lust for human meat, to cross in their small canoes from Malaita to San Cristoval at a distance of about 30 sea miles in order to attack the inhabitants of the latter island and bring them back to Malaita.

Especially during the season when religious feasts are celebrated on Malaita, the natives tend to go on manhunts in all directions. The inhabitants of Cristoval, however, recently managed to successfully defeat an attack by numerous Malaitans who suffered important losses. The fate of the Malaitans taken prisoner on Cristoval, however, must have been no less cruel than what the Cristovalans would have experienced if they had suffered defeat. The meat of the slain is cut into cubes and baked in some sort of pie made out of yams and thus served and eaten!

The weather today was exceptionally fine, a light Northern wind brought agreeable cool air which especially the occupants of starboard cabins, that is me too, could enjoy. In an extraordinarily colorful spectacle, the sun burned in the sky during sunset.

Links

• Location: Louisiade Islands
• ANNO – on 10.06.1893 in Austria’s newspapers. The region of Galicia is suffering from flooding.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater is playing „Egmont“. The k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater is closed from 1 June to 19 July.

During the night from the 4 to the 5 June „Elisabeth“ had reached her Eastern-most point of the journey near the Loyalty islands — 167° 36′ longitude East of Greenwich — and at that time the course was set towards San Cristoval of the Solomon group. The wind remained fairly constant during the 5th so that there was still a heavy pitch but then relented on the 6th. The temperature on deck but especially in the cabins announced the approaching tropical region and the weather similarly changed in character on the 6th. The sky was often cloudy and rain storms came down with increasing intensity towards the evening.

During intense rain a large flock of terns (Hydrochelidon fuliginosa) was flying around the ship, some of which sat on the yardarm of the main mast and attracted everybody’s attention by their cries. When a sailor climbed up and caught one of these gliders of the air with his bare hands despite the great darkness, the terns startled by this circled again in the air and crashed into the foresail light as well as the two position lights. Two of the birds apparently much exhausted landed on the deck and were captured without effort.

We used the two days, as well as we could in this wind and weather, to package and store our acquisitions from New Caledonia as well as completing our diary entries.

Links

• Location: At Sea to the Solomon islands
• ANNO – on 05.06.1893 in Austria’s newspapers.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater is playing „Das Heiratsnest“. The k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater is closed from 1 June to 19 July.

Despite the program of hoisting the anchor already at 7 o’clock in the morning we had to delay the hour of departure for some time as, besides the collection gifted to me, a number of objects had to be loaded on board which the governor and his adjutant had sent like multiple logs of precious wood which the dispatch boat „Loyalty“ had brought back from a day trip as well as a collection of partly alive partly stuffed specimens of bird species present on New Caledonia etc.

Among the birds, a special mention is deserved for the broad-billed parrot as well as the kagu (Rhinochetus jubatus) that is restricted to New Caledonia.

During the billeting of the animals in cages three of the wonderful roseate cockatoos we had taken on board in Sydney unfortunately escaped. The fugitives flew, happy about their regained freedom, towards the land. As much as we felt sorry about this loss we had the satisfaction of maybe having introduced a delightful bird species to New Caledonia as the cockatoos should find a favorable environment here to multiply given the comparable climatic circumstances.

After the church service — it was Sunday — we steamed out of the harbor of Numea, while we were saluted by the French ships with the flag, with board salute shots and with triple shouts of Hurrah to which we replied also with the flag, salute and sideway shots. On the island of Nu a music band had taken up position and played our anthem which meant we had to reply out of international courtesy with  the Marseillaise — a drastic exchange: the noble sounds of „God save“ and as its echo the revolutionary song!

We set course along the South-west coast and the small offshore islands to the South-east so that the coral reefs remained to starboard and passed rapidly through the Woodin Passage between the island of Ouen and the mainland. In this small sea strait which is in some places barely a sea mile wide reveals a number of picturesque views  in front of the mariner’s eye. On starboard rises the island of Ouen in jagged contours, long red stripes betraying its wealth in iron rocks; on port the coast of New Caledonia rises covered in rich mostly tropical vegetation. In a dense tangle as a characteristic of this special plant region of this part of Melanesia grow the slender and soaring araucariae; also some huts and a small house become visible and bring a refreshing sign of life into the scenery.

The journey continues through Prony Bay, around the Southern point of New Caledonia past the sharply protruding Cape Ndua, then a turn to the Northeast through the Havannah canal and finally out of its numerous coral reefs and currents into the open sea, steering North in the direction of the Loyalty islands. In the evening navigating through these islands was quite difficult as the sky had turned cloudy, a heavy rain storm was coming down so that we could not see further than a few meters and thus had to reduce our speed even more as now precise soundings of the Loyalty islands existed and the sea maps were of little reliability.  Finally the moon appeared again and then we could pass the islands without problems. The wind came during the whole day from North and North-east and made the ship pitch mightily.

Links

• Location: Next to the Loyalty islands
• ANNO – on   04.06.1893 in Austria’s newspapers. The Wiener Salonblatt of 4 June informs its readers belatedly about Franz Ferdinand’s departure from Australia.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater is playing „König Ottokars Glück und Ende“. The k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater is closed from 1 June to 19 July.