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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3101, 4 June 1917, Page 6

Judging by tho reports received by tho Commonwealth authorities from the Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, the task of civilising tho natives, who are of a most barbaric type, will ho long and tedious (says the Melbourne "Age"). In a Tccent exploratory tour, Judge Murray discovered a ghastly example of native art, consisting of a stuffed native head, painted in red, with yellow and black stripes. The natives frequenting tho upper reaches of the Strickland River were found to bo very wild and barbaric. Although armed with hows and arrows, they took fright at tho approach of tho_ white men, and fled in terror into tho jungle. Further on, however, at tho mouth of the Herbert River, they were of a moro hostile temperament, and fired at tho party. A few shots sufficed to put them to flight. In isolated cases Triendly relations wero established with tho blacks, but the abseneo of a common language in which to converse with_ them proved a handicap, and to avoid bloodshed the. parly continued on its Journey. The natives aro constantly warring fiiaong themselves, and in consequence the population in the middle Strickland <iiotrict is nomad in character.