STRANGE RAGE OF PIGMIES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10515, 25 July 1910, Page 6

STRANGE RAGE OF PIGMIES.

News has just been received in England of a remarkable discovery that has been made by one of the most in-, foresting and-important scientific expeditions that have ever left England's shores. The expedition, which is composed,pf a party of eminent British scientists, and owes its inception and organisation to Mr W. R. Ogilvie-Grant, was despatched by the British Ornithologists' Union in October last to explore the Snow Mountains, of New Guinea, or Papua, which is the largest unknown area on the surface of the earth. The discovery is that of a strange now race of pigmies of a color resembling \ that of a;newly blackleaded stove.; The. London Express is.enabled to furnish its readers with a full account of this striking discovery, so far as the details are available, as well as a list of sonic of the many wonders whose discovery by the expedition is now looked for almost daily. Not the least of these wonders is a mysterious animal of gigantic size and fearsome aspect, whose tracks have recently been reported in New Guinea. This animal at present goes by the name of. Monckton's "Gazeka," its presence in the mountains having been first indicated by Mr C. ,A. W, Monckton. a former explorer iii New Guinea. According to a native report of the appearance of the. animal, it has a nose like a tapir and-"a face like the devil" ! Mr Monckton, during his ascent of Mount Albert Edward in the west of British New Guinea, discovered the huge footprints and other indications of the very recent presence of some cloven, footed monster that had evidently been browsing on the grassy plains surrounding the lakes on the summit, at an elevation of abijut 12,500 feet. Up to the departure of the-present expedition no one has attempted to return to Mount Albert Edward and procure a specimen of the monster. During Dr. Lorentz's second attempt to reach the Snow Mountains, however, by way of the North River in Dutch New Guinea, one of his men reported having come across an enormous animal at an elevation of about 7000 ft.

Whether this great beast is the same as that reportecrby Mr Monckton from .British territory remains to be proved. Such a discovery, coupled with the finding of the strango pigmies, would richly reward the British expedition for the dangers and hardships it has already undergone, even were there no further wonders to be unlocked.

That these dangers are far from imaginary was shown in the most startling fashion on January 9, on which date Mr. Wilfred Stalker, one of the most distinguished members of the expedition, was drowned in the Mimika River. The circumstances of Mr Stalker's death are still unknown in this country. The discovery of the new race of pigmies was made during, the ascent of-the Snow Mountains in Central Dutch New Guinea. At an elevation of about 2000 feet the expedition came across a tribe whose average height is about 4ft 3in. . The main features of this marked type of the human race, apart from their small size, are: —(1) The extraordinarily dark color of their skin, which approaches, as one observer has remarked, the color of a newly blackleaded stove; (2) the extremely broad nose, the breadth of which is about equal to the height; (3) the frizzy hair, which grows in isolated peppercorn tufts all over the scalp. These people are in no senso dwarfs, but convey rather the impression of small but otherwise well-developed men, the arms, however, being relatively longer than those of Europeans. In habit they are. nomadic, nowhere tilling the ground, but depending for their living entirely on their skill in hunting and fishing. Their chief weapon is the bow, their arrows being generally poisoned either with the famous "upas" or some other analogous vegetable poison, which is in some cases a species of strychnine. But by far their most interesting weapon is an ingenious variety of "spring gun." This is formed by setting a flattened bamboo spear attached to a bent sapling, which is fastened to a trigger in such a way that it is released by the passer-by stumbling against an invisible string stretched across the track. These spears are in reality set for game. In time of peace they are obvious enough to the jnitiated, for their presence is generally indicated by a curious sign—namely, a broken-off twig placed in a cleft stick. In war, however, this and other warning signs are removed, the removal corresponding to the moving of buoys in a. mined channel. The wounds inflicted by these hardened bamboo spears are necessarily extremely serious. The mental qualities of the pigmies are far from 'developed. Not one of them, for example, is able to express a higher numerical idea than three. All who encounter them none the less unite in saying that they are a merry little people, with massive ideas of hospitality when once their confidence has been won, and provided they have not been ill-treated previously.

No expedition has ever been despatched under more promising auspices tiian that which sailed from England on October 20 last. Outside South Polar circles few parts of the world are so little known as the interior of Xew Guinea, a land which must be teeming with unknown wonders in the form of curious peoples and strange birds and beasts. This vast island is 1490 miles long, with a maximum breadth of i-hout 410 miles. It lies immediately to the north of Australia, from which it is separated by the shallow waters of the Torres Strait.

In portions of the northern coast of Papua both men and women go about entirely nude, the men, however, sometimes wearing a small breech-cloth of bark, and the women a short petticoat of woven grass. Religion consisits mainly of ancestor worship.

The explorations during recent years of certain portions of the Dutch territory at the north-west end of the island and of the British and German possessions at the eastern extremity have brought to light many wonderful new species,, more particularly new birds of paradise and gardener-bower birds Practically the whole of the interior of this vast island, however, remains unexplored. It was this country and its thousand and one marvels that the little body of explorers set out to conquer last autumn.