A JOURNEY IN HUTCH NEW, GUINEA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 237, 4 October 1894, Page 12

A JOURNEY IN HUTCH NEW, GUINEA.

EXPERIENCES OF TWO IMPERIAL

OFFICERS.

The schooner Lark (says the "Sydney Daily Telegraph") brought up from the islands Captain Cotton and Captain Webster, two Imperial officers who have been making a pleasure cruise and exploration trip through German New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and New Britain. Fever and dysentery attacked and laid them low, bub they pulled through, and arrived in this city in reduced weight, but otherwise healthy. Captain Cotton, a smart young officer," his muscles hardened by rough work, mountain climbing, and deadly attack on rare and beautiful butterflies, and his face bronzed by exposure to tropical suns, related yesterday how he and his companion had passed through and survived their self-imposed ordeal. They had an deuce of a time, in German New Guinea, don't you know, though" their hardships wore softened by the generous hospitality of the Teutonic officials in the settlement. First they landed at Frederick William Harbour, which ia apparently about the best place in the world to escape from unless you're shipwrecked. Police officials and assistants were placed at their disposal, and with, this army they penetrated the mountain fastnesses, crossed streams, struggled through malaria swamp*, saw natives with less of costume than even ballet girla, and arrived within a figurative stone's throw of the British frontier line. Rain used to fall with such terrific force and such enormous volume thab their tents were frequently swept away from over them. But they established one of a series of geographical facts, and that was that the great Bismarck mountain is a delusion,' and that what has hitherto been supposed to be the Bismarck Here ia Mount Albert Victor, on British territory. Also they .went to Astrolabe Bay. They found tobacco being cultivated, and the industrious Chinaman and Javanese the chief among the manual workers. Very little commercially seems to have been done with German New Guinea 60 far. Solomon Islands, Captuin Cotton says, have not been annexed by Great Britain, bub were only under a protectorate. Once they became British possessions, with the stable government which follows in the English wake, he is satisfied thab they would make magnificent places for colonising purposes. There are many thousands of square miles of good land. As a pbseession, the islands would, he is convinced, surpass Fiji in value. The two officers also had a rattling time at New Britain. They have brought with them a hundred instructive and entertaining photographs, many trophies of stirring adventures, and £2,000 worth of butterflies. This interesting and valuable collection they will carry home with them to England.