Champion’s Epic Papuan Journey

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30419, 18 April 1964, Page 5

Champion’s Epic Papuan Journey

(By JACK PERCIVAL, in the “Sun Herald.” Sydney. Reprinted by arranocr>e>it 1 A BOUT 40 years ago, Ivan Champion trod where no European had been before—seeing death everywhere, unsurpassed beauty and a new world of flora and fauna. He risked arrows in the back, pacified cannibals who had never seen a white man before, swam rivers and estuaries infested with crocodiles and sharks, and faced winged death in the mosquito.

A few days ago at the age of 60 he retired at Port Moresby from Government service. His last official post was Chief Native Lands Commissioner.

Now greying, stockily built, bespectacled, known as a man “who dosen’t talk poppycock,” he still intends to live an active life. He will captain the 127-ton diesel yacht Lourabada which will carry cargo to Territory ports. Champion’s name has become a legend in his own lifetime both inside and outside New Guinea which is sparing in its eulogies. He has taken part in numerous explorations, but his most famous was the one in 1'927 in which, accompanied by Charles Karius, an assistant resident magistrate, he crossed New Guinea for the first time from south to north at its widest part. Shy Of Praise Typical of the man, he passes most of the credit for this famous exploit to his partner. Sir Hubert Murray, then Lieutenant ■ Governor of Papua, picked Karus and Champion for the expedition. Pre-war New Guinea presented these pioneers with terrifying obstacles. There were thousands of square miles of unexplored equatorial forests, huge areas of disease-ridden sago swamps, and, in the interior, rugged razor backs of limestone mountains towering, as high as 16,000 feet. The approaches to the interior were guarded by swirling torrents full of whirlpools and snags, and underground rivers, formed by torrential rains soaking through the porous rock, Until 1927 all efforts to cross New Guinea at its widest part had failed. That was why Sir Hubert Murray decided on the expedition to trace the Fly river to its source, cross to the head of the Sepik and follow it to its mouth. Terrified The Government ketch Flevala took Karius and Champion to the Alice River, about 500 miles from the mouth of the Fly River, and from there they set out. Two days later 27 of the carriers deserted, terrified by the eerie surroundings and the prospect of being eaten by cannibals, A police sergean intercepted ■ the deserters and brought them back. The party further penetrated the jungle 100 miles, to be confronted by an insurmountable limestone barrier.

Champion’s police boys and

Across I—Company gets a good man at a price! (4) 3 Mad fellow before one has a short call. (8) 9 Spots the complaint. (7) 10— A certain time for playing. (5) 11— They could easily hold briefs for embassy staff lawsuits! (7-5) 13—What a beater does. (6) 15—Lying, maybe—please reform. (6) 17—Preparation for giving barbers more trade. (4-8) 20— Plea that shows one is after bail anyhow. (5) 21— Recall? (7) 22 Smooth fellows, those journalists! (5-3) 23 Noticed you interrupting the editor. (4) Down 1— Powder containers are bargains. (8) 2 Slick southern tradingcentre. (5) 4 The ways of the church. (6) 5 There’s no object to this

sort of action. (12) 6—A little composition before the continuity artist

appears. (7) 7—Sweepstake set up by this

ring. (4) B—Fruit the negro puts in the earth, one hears. (12) 12—‘Full of. life but stealthily

carried away. (8) 14—Comprehend how to turn something into money. (7) 16—A little bit of latitude taken by the student (6) 18— Dangerous rift half showing over the heavens. (5) 19— Breathe deeply in pronouncing aspirates. (4)

I carriers built two small rafts and they drifted back down the river.

They were plunged into a gorge so narrow that the walls almost touched.

Overhead the criss-crossing branches of trees made a tunnel as black as a moonless night. The rafts, at times spinning like tops, were rushed down by the current until they reached a position near their base camp. The outward journey on foot had taken them 14 hours—it took them 30 minutes to get back. After a conference Karius decided to make a dash for the Sepik, and Champion was assigned to take half of the party to Daru. Champion, however, decided to explore the mountains before returning. This decision was the turning point for the expedition. Champion met friendly natives who led him beneath the perpendicular walls to the 80l River (a tributary of the Fly), and then to Bolivip, a native village. At the village Champion was not allowed into a 30-foot-long hut which was strictly guarded. He assumed that it contained gruesome relics of his host’s past battles with enemies. The chief described a river which flowed north. It was the Takin, one of the headwaters of the Sepik. War Drums Champion returned to the base camp for supplies, but by then none of his carriers was fit to work. He decided to follow Karius home by rafting down river. They drifted past tribes on the warpath and the roar of the river was drowned by the rumble of drums. When they rounded a bend they saw a mile line of blazing torches along the banks, and canoes painted with red and white stripes were paddled out by screaming natives armed with bows and bundles of arrows. The natives tried to board the rafts but were shoved off by the police boys. When rifles were presented at them they retreated. After rafting 500 miles, Champion saw the riding light of the Elevala. The two explorers agreed to take a rest on the coast, then go back to Bolivip. When they returned the chief led them over needlepointed pinnacles of limestone, through thick mists and moss-covered scrub, and across swaying bridges of vines 40 feet above creaming rapids and apparently bottomless chasms which looked like gigantic man-traps, Great Basin At an altitude of about 9000 feet, the chief pointed out a great basin surrounded by mountains of dizzy heights, In the valley the explorers saw a wide, muddy, slow-mov-ing river. They started the descent and soon the countryside echoed with the peculiar frogcroaking warning of the Telefomin people. Armed natives were seen running in all directions, and a line of warriors confronted the intruders. The warriors stood with drawn bows and fixed arrows. Karius and Champion simply walked towards them as if they did not exist. As the white meh got near the line broke and the de fenders fled into their houses Champion injured his leg by slipping and crashing on a sharp rock. He had to be carried on a stretcher across a native suspension bridge 120 feet long and swaying nearly 50 feet above a river. For 11 days he was carried on the stretcher. Then he decided to try to walk. Hide’s Journey With the help of two sticks he hobbled along. At this stage they estimated they had only five days’ rations left and 600 miles to go. The group was lucky enought to strike sago patches and a native village which supplied food. At the village they were at first confronted by natives, who drew up in a line three deep, fitted arrows to their bowstrings and drew. The two explorers made friends by shouting all the peace words they knew and waving their arms in token of goodwill. The final stage of the journey was a nightmare of glutinous swamps infested by scorpions, lizards and biting insects, which raised great welts when they settled on torsos, arms and faces. Swamp Camp

The file waded through mud armpit deep. To pitch camp they had to build platforms three feet above the stinking mud, bubbling with gases from rotting vegetation infested by scorpions and snakes. They found some trees suit-

able for rafts and drifted towards the mouth of the river.

Early one morning they were startled by a rifle shot. When the rafts drifted around a bend they saw the Elevala, which had navigated upriver 500 miles to rescue them. New Guinea had been traersed! Karius and Champion had achieved what was considered to be the impossible.

Enterprise The success was due to Champion's enterprise in meeting the chief of Bolivip village and presuading him to show them the northern watershed and the way to the coast. Champion made another valuable exploration in 1936 when he journeyed up the Bamu River and crossed the nountains to the Purari River. That expedition, for which he received the Gill Memlorial Medal of the Royal Geoigraphical Society, resulted in the discovery of several tri--1 utaries of the Purari and new lakes and rivers. Champion was also made an honorary member of the New York Explorers’ Club. Any mention of New Guinea exploration within the last 50 years would be inadequate without including the achievements of Jack Hides, who, with Patrol Officer O’Malley, gave to the world about 30 years ago the first pictures and descriptions of a huge area of previously unknown country in the centre of the border between Papua and New Guinea. In his report Hides described it as “A Papuan wonderland.” This expanded the picture of the territory opened up by Champion. Hides resigned from the Papuan administration in 1936 to lead a gold-seeking expedition into unopened territory by way of the Strickland River. He was accompanied by Mr David Lyall, who became seriously ill. Hides dropped his mission and made a hazardous and daring dash back to Daru to get medical aid. Disasters During this retreat to civilisation, Hides and Lyall suffered an almost incredible series of disasters. But due to the tenacity of Hides and the courage of his ailing companion they got through to the coast. Writing about his last, expedition, Hides said: “Northward of the Murray, and northward and westward of my route to the great tablelands of the Kikori and Purari was a country no European had ever seen. It was the Strickland, that drained this last unknown ‘centre’ of British New Guinea. This was our objective. “At Lake Murray I met again my young headhunting friend, Situmu. I asked him: ‘Do you still eat man, Situmu?’ “He told me that the flesh of man was red. The legs of man were never eaten, only that portion above the hips, which tasted like ’possum. Cannibal Cuisine “The body was singed over tire, so that the top layer of thick skin could be removed? then the flesh was cut into strips, some roasted plainly on the open fire; some cooked in bamboo with sago and bush cabbage.” Pressing on. Hides noticed that Lyall was ailing. One night he was wakened by his companion vomiting in the darkness outside the tent It was the start of a fatal illness. Hides began the long journey back to the coast and Lyall got weaker and weaker as they progressed. Five carriers died from beri-beri. Three days were taken to build two rafts. When the party reached the last stage of their journey disaster struck. “I heard the roar of the bore above the wind and rain,” wrote Hides. “We lifted Lyall from a canoe and placed him high above the danger mark. Then Bijea (a rative assistant) and 1 jumped back quickly to our raft to try and save it, for it was now our only hope. Wall Of Water “The roar approached closer and closer. Fifty yards away I saw the wall of white water rushing on us in the dark. It struck with tremendous force, lifted us high in the air, and all was over. We had lost everything.

“1 reached the bank a quarter of a mile above, and three days later 1 saw the canoe, split wide open from stem to stern.”

Lyall was taken to Madiri on a new raft but he died there from a heart attack. Hides’ last expedition will go down as one of the finest efforts in the story of the development of New Guinea. He died in 1938.