NEW GUINEA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5314, 6 April 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEW GUINEA.

(From the Queenslander, March 23.)

It seems almost certain that New Guinea is to be the next country iu these seas which will be subdued and settled hy the Anglo-Saxon race,, the primary attraction being gold ; though up to the • present time nothing has transpired to warrant gold-seekers iu trying their fortune in that country. All the encouragement that has been given consists of a few Very ordinary specimens of auriferous quartz, aud the opinion of two or three persons who have been there that a payable goldfield will be discovered. Of the character of the country and of its people some slight knowledge has been acquired lately by stray visitors, but the accounts as regards the natives are rather conflicting. Before long, however, we hope to be able to furnish our readers with more reliable information than has hitherto been available, a gentleman of considerable ability, who is resident in the country and has an intimate acquaintance with the natives, having undertaken the office of correspondent of the Queenslander. His first communication appears in the present issue, and in a letter written a day or two later he states that he had offered the .Kanaka, Jimmy Caledonia, £5 to get good gold specimens to send to us. From the Rev. Mr. Ohalmers who, though ho has only resided in New Guinea a few weeks, probably knows as much of its inhabitants as any European, our Cooktown correspondent has obtained some interesting information, which he has forwarded to us. Mr. Chalmers describes the natives of the South Cape district as cannibals, who wear human jawbones as ornaments, and decorate tbeir houses with the skulls of enemies killed iu battle ; while the Port Moresby natives, he says, express horror aud astonishment at such barbarous customs. While regretting that the gold-fever should have sot iu before he had gained a firmer hold on the population, Mr. Ohalmers rather encourages the idea of a well-equipped prospecting party, which he says ought not to consist of more than twenty, four or five of whom should be' Kanakas. Such a party, he states, could go' through the whole -island without molestation, especially inland from Port Moresby, in which direction the specimens that have caused such unwarrantable excitement were found. We cannot but think, however, that such a party would run very considerable risk of contributing to the decoration of some village after the native artistic fashion described by Mr. Chalmers. The best time of the year to laud, Mr. Ohalmers says, would be June, and the party should be furnished with paokliorses or males, as the coast natives will not go inland. The question of annexation to Great Britain,or Australia will no doubt soon be settled one way or the other ; iu the meantime Mr. Ohalmers looks upon it as absolutely necessary that some one of the settlers should be vested with authority in the island. Such a person would, he feels sure, be looked up to by the natives at Port Moresby, who would obey him like children. These people, it seems, number about 150 males; but there is a population of several thousands to be dealt with—people who, according to Mr. Chalmers’ own showing, arc of a less amiable disposition than these 150—and it is to be feared that many difficulties would arise which would not be very easily overcome, Under existing circumstances it is-plain that nobody outside New Guinea has power to confer authority upon anyone on the island, however desirable such an appointment miy be iu the interest of the missionaries and of the European settlers.