"LOST" PRESENT-DAY EXPLORERS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12111, 4 July 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

"LOST" PRESENT-DAY EXPLORERS.

(Pearson's Weekly.) Any up-to-date seeker after lost explorers anxious to emulate Stanley's famous achievement of thirty years ago cannot do better than, fit out an expedition to try to find Captain Barreta. This eminent traveller and savant left Buenos Ayres several years ago to explore the .great forest region of Paraguay. For the- first eight or nine months he managed to keep in fairly regular touch, by means or native runners, with the civilisation he had left behind him. Then suddenly his messages ceased, and he and' his companions mysteriously disappeared. And from that day until quite recently all attempts to ascertain his whereabouts or establish communications with him have failed l ; and this notwithstanding that several relief expeditions have been organised. Most of these, however, have, it must be confessed, met with rank bad luck. One lost the whole of its stores in the rapids of the Aguara-y River; the chief of another, Signer Boggiani, was• murdered ; while yet a third suffered l so severely from fever that seventy-five oi its members DIED IN LESS THAN A MONTH. But now at last Signor Paese, the leader of the most recent search party, has sent a thrill of excitement through Argentina by returning with the news that natives report Barreta's presence among the Chapiri Indians. Tile explorer was, they assert, taken prisoner within a few weeks of his disappearance, and has been kept captive ever since in spite of several attempts to escape. There is fame, and fortune, too, awaiting the man lucky enough to rescue' and bring back to civilisation the three lost members of the Duke of the Abiuzzi's Volar expedition.

The missing explorers, it will be remembered, accompanied l the Duke's lieutenant, Captain Ca.gni, in the famous sledge journey, which, starting in the spring of 1900, succeeded in reaching latitude 84.33 N., or twenty miles farther north than Nansen's farthest. , On the way back they lost touch with the rest of the party, and l wandered away into the unknown. Nevertheless it is hoped' and BIiLIEVED THEY ABE STILL ALIVE. Captain Stakken, it is true, failed to discover any trace of them in 1901. But then, argue the experts, he was admittedly unable to systematically.'explore the northern and north-western .coasts of Franz Josef's Land ; and it is there, if anywhere, that 'the missing men will ultimately be found to have taken refuge. Andvee and his companions, too, may conceivably foe somewhere within the Arctic circle awaiting deliverance. True, the time specified by him during which his friends might hope for his safe return haslona since elapsed* But the Polar regions are of vast extent; and it is by no means impossible that the explorers may not be at this moment imprisoned upon some uncharted and ice-girdled island, or living, unable to get away, in one or the other of the many isolated Eskimo settlements known to exist along the eastern coast of Greenland.

Deep withirt the forest-clad and raiasoaked interior of New Guinea, Karl Peterson and tlrree companions await release frdui a captivity so rigorous and so cruel that the mind instinctively shrinks from I'ICTHBING lnE>. FULL HORROR OF IT.

IB was in the autumn of 1901 that this little, expedition landed at Humboldt Bay, on the north, coast, and immediately struck due south into the unexplored country lying between the 140 th parallel of longitude and the dividing line which Separates the British and German jiossessions from those of the Dutch. Three momtlis later it was ambushed by a band of Papuans, the native carriers were killed or driven off, and the three Europeans were taken prisoners.

Since then three letters have been receivedl by their friends. The captives report that the place where they are is situated about one hundred miles due west of Mount Donaldson, and almost in the very centre'of the island. The savages make them work hard from dawn till ,dusk ; they are given very little food, and are subjected almost daily to every form of indignity, insult and outrage. Two hundred miles north-west of Kabul lies the mysterious country of Kaffristan, and somewhere within its borders, dead or alive, the .Russian explorer Svertalsky is interned.

Prior to Sir George Robertson's' expedition thither in 1891, its frowning precipices and terrific gorges had never been trodden by a European foot. Indeed, so rigorously, and so jealously has it been guarded, during more than four hundred years past, by the pagan mountaineers who inhabit it, that the very name " Kaffristan" has become synonymous with " inaccessibility " and "isolation," so that Sir Henry Yule was wont to declare that it would be the very last part of the world which should remain unknown.

Sir George, nevertheless, penetrated to its inmost core, and returned to. tell the tale. M. Svertalsky, essaying to repeat his exploit, fell a victim to the treachery of a native guide, although whether he was actually killed or merely taken prisoner, is still in doubt.

In Africa, again, lost amid the frightful deserts of the Igidi region, between the southern frontier of Morocco and the city of Timbuctoo, is M. Bonavalli, and as many of his fifteen c*mpanions as may 'be left alive.

The fate of this young man is a particularly hard one. Rich, brave and adventurous, he set out. from the Tissent Oasis nearly three years ago, intending to reach Timbuctoo by a new route. He had absolutely no ulterior motive, political or otherwise, and, although bin party was well armed and equipped, he wjw most patient and liberal with the natives

THROUGH WHOSE TERRITORIES HE HAD TO TASS. -- When about one-third of his journey had ,been completed, however, the expedition was surprised at night by an overwhelming force of nomad ttibesmen. The cameldrivers and servants were speared and the caravan looted; but it is believed that the lives of the white men were spared. A'.all events, two messages, brief, but apparently authentic, have since been received from the leader, one of them dated so recently as June of last year. And this is, of course, but one of severalother similar mystery-tragedies which have occurred recently in this same quarter of the globe. Africa exacts stern tribute of those who would pry into the few scci.t places still left to her. Not even Africa, however, can vie with Australia in this respect, expedition after expedition having been repeatedly swallowed up and lost in the tracklesSj shade-

less, waterless nnd foodlcss wastes that) occupy so much of the far interior. One of the first to so sniffer was'that commanded by the intrepid Dr Leichardt. Well found and splendidly equipped, it set out from Queensland in the autumn of 1847, with the avowed object of CROSSING TIIE CONTINENT VROM EAST TO WEST. News of its progress reached the settlemenls up to April 3 of tho following year; Mncfc then silence. Nor lias tho veil ever been lifted from tiro mystery surrounding their fate. Somewhere in the desert their bones lie, but where no man knows. One thing is certain. They must all have lierished miserably long ago. The same sad sentence, too. it is to be feared, must be passed upon Buckle's party, which, in 1883, disappeared from human ken in South Australia, between tho Musgrave Mountains and the sea. But it is at least likely that, soincwhoro within the vast unexplored region lying between Stmt Creek and the section \>f the overland telegraph lino adjacent to tho Ash-burton and ranges, traces of the Cartwright expedition may be found.