S^"
Auoxxvaijia ueuig consiuereu a
continent, then Papua (British
^Tew Guinea) is the largest
Island in the world. This terri
tory is made up of the mainland of
Papua itself and many small island
groups. Papua lies to the north of
Australia, and includes the rnuch
talked-of territory formerly called Ger
man New Guinea. It is a land of won
derful scenery, of strange peoples, of
the grandest commercial possibilities.
It is the richest asset of the common
wealth of Australia, writes Thomas J..
McMahon in the Illustrated London
News.
Through the center of the island
runs a great mountain chain, termed
the central mountains, many of the
summits running from 6,000 to 10.000
feet in height. These mountains are
covered all the year round to the ut
most peaks with the most vivid ver
dure. Under the bright blue skies of
the tropics and the flashing sun, they
are at all times grandly imposing,
standing out, as they do, like masses
of burnished gold. Away in the sum
mits, seldom traversed by the white
man, are most uncommon scenic beau
ties. The effects of sunlight and mists
to be seen in looking over the great
valleys are wonderful in the extreme.
Such mist effects are not to be found
in any other part of the world. Some
day tourists will flock to Papua and to
the wonderland of its mountains. The
mists are remarkable, coming and go
ing. folding and spreading, rising and
falling, changing from a snow-white to
gray, and sometimes in the flashing of
sunbeams to brighter colors. At times
with magic suddenness the misfrs van
ish. leaving the mountain tops above
and valleys below standing out sharp
and clear, and revealing the great red
gaps in the hillsides, from the amazing
landslips that are ever going on, ac
companied by noise like the booming
of great artillery.
Mountain Villages and Valleys.
Round about and all along the moun
tain-sides are hundreds of small native
villages—brown spots for all the world
like the nests of some giant bird. These
villages are perched on the ends of
spurs, and even on the very brinks of
precipices, and are approached only by
hidden tracks, such is the caution of
the natives to guard against the sud
den appearance of any tribal enemy.
The valleys are superb as seen from
the mountain spurs and looking over
the dense, dark jungles, through which
are streaked flashing hands of silver,
the courses of the mighty rivers so
numerous in Papua. Beginning in some
mountain torrent—some waterfall, per
haps—these wide, swift-flowing rivers
rush to the sea through jungles that
tire thickly planted with an amazing
variety of commercial timbers, and
from which some day soon thousands
of sawmills will he sending to the coun
tries of the empire immense quantities
of timber and the pulp for paper.
‘ The mountain-sides are walls of
moss and fern. Giant trees of im
mense girth shoot up. the branches
thickly festooned with bright flowering
creepers, the great trunks gripped hy
monster vines with powerful clinging
stems, and leaver whose length and
breadth are measured in feet. High in
the branches sounds the strange, un
musical caw' of the gorgeous Bird of
Paradise; for this bird of the most
brilliant plumage—more brilliant than
any other bird in the world—is, after
all. hut of the mean, low family of the
common crow. • Papua is the only
country in the world that knows it is
the home of the Bird of Paradise.
There is a wide variety, and the law
protects the bird with such severity
that a very heavy punishment is in
flicted for shooting it. or even for steal
ing its feathers. No sale of the feath
ers under any circumstances is allowed,
and customs officers search tourists’
luggage very diligently for any hidden
piece of plumage. The wing or tail of
a bird will he worth hundreds of
pounds—one reason why they are sel
dom seen in ladies’ bonnets nowadays.
Some Wonderful Insects.
i in this wonderland of Papua is found
the island’s specialty, the giant butter
fly. These beautiful, many-colored in
sects measure from twelve to eighteen
inches from wing-tip to wing-tip, and
they have bodies the size of a small
bird. Specimens of these butterflies
are to be seen in (he collection of the
late tsaron ifotnscuiiu, vno sent out to
Papua a scientist to collect rare in
sects and birds. Another marvelous
insect, of the cricket class, is what is
popularly called the “Six o’Clock” bee
tle. This little creature exists abun
dantly, and is really wonderful in its
habits. It gets its name from the fact
that every night at precisely six o’clock
it gives forth a resonant, far-reaching
chirp, exactly like a loud electric bell.
At six o’clock one will begin, and in a
few minutes the mountains will re
sound with the deafening noise of these
punctual timekeepers. But long after
the insects have ceased to chirp, the
amazing echoes of the hills will throw
back the sounds, lasting for several
minutes. Travellers In doubt as to
the correct time set their watches to
this insect’s evening chirp.
A companionable little mite also
known only to the mountains of Papua
is the “Bell-frog,” which produces the
notes of a bell, sweet, soft, and clear,
and all day long can be heard the mu
sical and friendly tinkle. A tiny gray
frog from under a stone is responsible,
and gives out its cheerful sound as a
warning that its home Is not to be dis
turbed by a careless foot.
In the mountains of Papua roam a
pigmy-sized people, the pure Papuans.
They are a race quite distinct from the
coastal peoples, and with customs that
are very primitive and strange. Though
small, they are perfect in stature, and
the young people are quite good-look
ing. They are now fast coining with
in the pale of civilization, owing to the
splendid work of the traveling magis
trates of the Papuan administration—
a very fine body of civil servants. A
few years back, before these magis
trates got in touch with these people,
they were constantly at war, one tribe
fighting another, sometimes destroying
or wiping out whole villages, or, more
often, killing the men and carrying off
the women. Men and women dress
very meagerlv—in fact, their main cov
ering is necklaces of dogs’ teeth or
shells, with a long white hone pencil
stuck through the lower portion of the
nose, and called “nose-sticks.” The
men paint their bodies with red and
yellow pigments, and carry big bows
and arrows, much bigger than them
selves. The women, always very sub
ject to the men, are silent and shy,
and do not decorate themselves much.
In ‘time of widowhood or family mourn
ing they blacken their faces and hair,
already very black, with charcoal, giv- >:
ing them a most grotesque appearance.
While the natives of the coast lands of j
Papua demand tobacco as a present, ,
the hdl peoples delight in common <
coarse salt, and. given a handful, they
will treasure it up to make it last as !
Ion? ns possible.
Huts Built Up on Poles.
The native villages have the huts
built up on poles, and. while the family
live on the upper story, pigs wallow in
awful filth below, nnd, in consequence,
it is possible to smell a village miles
away. These people are very fond of
dogs and pigs as pets. Pigs are nat
ural to the island, but dogs are not,
and this is how the natives came to get
them: Many years agok when Papua
(then called New Guinea) was only oc
casionally visited by some plucky Brit
ish traders, a dog belonging to one of
them proved an immense attraction to
the natives; and the trader, seeing a
good opportunity to make money—or
rather, a cheap way to get large sup
plies of copra (dried cocoanut for oil),
of which the natives had plenty to bar
ter away—went to Australia and in one
of the Queensland towns bought up all
the mongrel dogs that could be had.
He got quite a ship full, and returned
to Papua, doing a roaring trade, every
dog selling for at least over twenty
pounds—or that value in copra. In
turn, the coastal natives bartered their
dogs to the mountain natives, but the
breeds from mongrels have deteri
orated until the wretched things now
seen are hairless, ugly creatures, petted
while alive, but much prized after
death for their teeth, which make the
principal native jewelry.
Papua will presently loom large in
commerce, for it is a land of marvel
ous resources, and its soil is of rich
fertility. Every tropical plant product
thrives wonderfully, and British enter
prise has shown that, with wise and
progressive administration, this island
should be one of the brightest jewels
of the British empire.
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