ARMED EXPEDITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 172, 22 July 1924, Page 7

ARMED EXPEDITION.

TWO MISSING WOMEN. BLACKS T ***»» MA^ N TBAGEDY - -.Wt-PMM A6Sociation.-Ccpyrt S ht.» (Bγ ay —- — (Kecelved 1-30 p.m.) MELBQUBXE, this day. Jinf to further advice from the of the Northern Territory impracticable to send an « )S .. .rxi force overland in an the women alleged to *"£ P Uvivors of the Douglas Maweon. k o-oiedition is being organised, A * *Jth , "schooner Huddersfield. to be searched is probably part of the whole conti**>from Roper Island, n aborigines of the mission have ° liSo contact with whites, and M Sally hostile to strangers. *" -hTmsv be increased by unfortunate with. Malay trepang fishers, ff££ paid flying visits to their **i> country is exceedingly rough and Jrtaßj ten incognita. No living Sniw appears to have crossed it, and •■ available. A search party, to consist of police , jjoerienced bushmen, who are being .ted to volunteer, will be armed so as "\. spared for eventualities. It is Jidedas possible that they may have todealwithhostile earage natives. Extreme measures will only be taken, how«vw in emergency. Se party is expected to leave Port Dentin in about a week ' U wUI 8 Sanded by Colonel Storey. The members will proceed by sea from Port Darwin to Boorooloola. A message from Port Darwin states that experienced nautical men are sceptical regarding the Douglas Maweon story They assert that conclusive proof ws"'iecma that the steamer was wrecked 400 miles from the point where the natives are reported to have murdered come of the crew. They claim that neither the vessel nor the crew could have reached such a position in ♦he violent cyclonic storm which raged »t the time of the wreck. They also state that three missions and a police station are within a 200-mile radius of the scene of the alleged tragedy, and tljt the missionaries could not have failed to have heard something of the massacre long apo if it had occurred.— (A. and M. Cable.)