INTERIOR OF PAPUA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22630, 23 July 1935, Page 9

INTERIOR OF PAPUA

EXPLORATION BY PATROL ENCOUNTERS WITH NATIVES RABAUL, July 22. (Received July 22, at 11.15 p.m.) After frequent encounters with hostile cannibals wearing wigs of human hair and carrying daggers made of human thigh bones, the assistant magistrate, Mr .1. G. Hides, and Patrol Officer L. J. O’Malley have returned to Port Moresby from a dangerous six months’ exploration in the interior of Papua. Their patrol crossed from Strickland River to Purari River, most of the route being over a plateau 7000 ft high. They discovered previously unknown country consisting of a wonderfully fertile valley carrying a big population of natives of a fine type, with definite Asiatic characteristics.

The patrol suffered no casualties in the encounters with natives, but the number of the attackers’ casualties is unknown. The whole party was troubled by extreme hunger, cold and exposure, three natives dying.

An article published on Saturday morning stated that the authorities were at a loss to account for the patrol not having maintained the arranged schedule to complete its 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.