PAPUAN MYSTERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22628, 20 July 1935, Page 7

PAPUAN MYSTERY

OVERDUE PATROL LEADER’S LATEST REPORT ARDUOUS CONDITIONS

Although not alarmed over the failure of Mr Jack Hides, assistant resident magistrate, of the Papuan Administration, and Patrol Officer J. O’Malley to return after having been cut off from civilisation for more than six months, the authorities (says the Sydney Morning Herald of July 11) are at a loss to account for their not having maintained the arranged schedule to complete their journeyings by May. The two officers, with native police and carriers, set out last December to penetrate the unexplored country between the headwaters of the Strickland River and the Purari River, which has its source in New Guinea and flows across Papua to the Gulf. The last letter from the expedition, received in April, indicated that good progress was being made. It stated:—

“ Forty days have elapsed since the Vailala landed our party on an island above Douglas Bend, and in that period we have transported .50 men and about eight tons of stores and equipment over 84 miles of tvater. most of the time contending with floods. It was a terrific task; the fact that our camp is 4750 feet above sea level will convey some idea of what was achieved. I have never seen the gulf coast natives to better advantage than when they literally carried the loaded canoes over difficult rapids. At one stage we hauled them by ropes over a roaring cataract. “ On February 6, a river was discovered entering the Strickland from the east. It was a large river with its mouth partly concealed, and as it seemed to lead to the north, I decided to follow it. For reference, it has ‘ been named the Rentoul River. MOUNTAINS AND RAPIDS. "We have advanced 41 miles up the Rentoul, the last 20 miles being over rapids. Further progress by water is impossible; high mountains are now crowding upon us, and the rapids are really cataracts. Three canoes have been destroyed to remove all temptation from the carriers to desert, and the fourth will leave here in the morning with four police boys and two sick carriers. This leaves us with 10 police boys and 28 carriers. We are camped on the eastern watershed of the Rentoul, at approximately latitude 6deg 16.5 min and two miles west of meridian 142 deg 30min — or, roughly speaking, about 85 miles south-west of Mount Hagen (in the Mandated Territory). “ The Rentoul appears to drain a large area of country. One confluent strikes north-north-east, draining high mountains, near the Carrington River, as far east as 50 miles from the Cecilia Junction (where the Carrington joins the Strickland); and along this north-east line of mountains there rises a gigantic precipice—a huge wall of rock 10 to 12 miles in length and with a sheer v drop of over a mile. These high mountains appear to be all of limestone. ** A second arm of the Rentoul extends eastwards from our camp for a distance of 30 miles or so, losing itself in some high mountains that probably form the top watershed of the Kikori River (which eventually flows into the centre of the Gulf of Papua) . In this direction there appears to be a large basin, flanked by \ these mountains and still higher ones ; to the north. ;; ‘ WHERE HEADHUNTERS ROAM. “ I cannot quite make out this country yet; there are parte where I can see as far as the eye can reach, without a lofty mountain on the horizon. The main Rentoul—that which we are now following—seems to disappear into the north-east between mountains 8000 and 9000 feet high, tl am inclined to believe ; that the country which lies ahead of }us is of open grass valleys, densely populated. I may be wrong; but it is certainly inhabited. “ To the north and east of our present base the country is fringed with gardens —the first we have seen to date, though the territory we have passed through is all populated. As one looks back down the Rentoul, the hills soon disappear and the country in the vicinity of the Strickland assumes the character of an enormous plain. This lower region, from the Carrington River in the no-th to the Dupotata Creek in the south—an area of approximately 1000 square miles —is inhabited for the most part by nomadic tribes, thinly s scattered over swamp and forest. They are brownskinned natives, wearing the grass sporran of the Gulf Kukukuku The .’Strickland headhunters obtain their {heads from these primitive people. WORK WITH STONE AXES.

“ I saw some small areas cleared with stone axes, upon which the natives have with difficulty raised banana and sugar cane crops, but of villages there were none. The people have accepted presents of steel from us, which,, we left at a distance, and they appear to be friendly. One day I came upon a sago •encampment where a number of men, women, and children were making sago. They did not attempt to run away nor did they try to molest me, but when one of our armed constables got himself into a helpless condition in the mud the men tried to murder him. “ It is difficult to estimate the number of these nomads, and I think it will always be'difficult, because they are all wanderers and the whole forest is their playground. There is probably no other part of Papua so full of game as this huge area of undulating forest lands, and it is on account of this fact, I suppose, that these primitive people are here, living to-day as they did probably before corn was' discovered in Egypt. They are surely a part of the oldest inhabitants of this great island. “We have three months’ stores left, and I expect it will take us fully that time to reach the laro River (which crosses into Papua from the Mandated Territory of New Guinea and flows in a south-westerly direction, eventually to reach the Purari River and on into the Papuan Gulf). Once we reach the laro River our journey to the coast should not be very difficult. We now start relaying into the mountains. This will be slow —painfully slow—for some time, but once the rice is dowjj to just that amount which we can carry off at once as a mobile force, then we shall move quickly, making a wide swing to the north and south, and covering a large area of country in our last dash. I do not expect that we shall have any of our own food left by the time that we reach Purari. In that area, however, I know what is ahead of us, and we shall be able to live, however uncomfortably, on the country. O’Malley and I are fit and well, and have flowing beards, like corsairs.” Mr Hides was born in Papua, which he knows thoroughly. He was formerly a successful patrol officer in the administration service.