Barinka.us - Around The World

Guba Departs

One o'clock, Thursday, June 2nd, on the ramp at Lindbergh Field: Captain Richard Achbold and crew yield to the requests of cameramen for shots beside the PBY'S "Guba" as she is being gassed for the flight to New Guinea. Five news-reelers for an audience of millions, took movies and recorded Archbold as he spoke briefly: "We are about to depart on a 7,000-mile flight to New Guinea on a scientific expedition for the American Museum of Natural History. We will collect birds, mammals and plants. We expect to be gone for one and a half to two years." Thus for the news-seeking audience Archbold summed up the expedition's objectives. Cameras ground out yards of footage, photo bulbs flashed, cameras clicked and amateur movie cameras whirred almost incessantly. Graciously, to professional and amateur photographers alike, members of the crew paused in their last minute preparations to be "shot" from all nature of angles in and about the ship.

Gas continued to be pumped aboard, tucked away in the commodious integral tanks of the wings. Packages, luggage, boxes and miscellaneous items were passed aboard, stowed away, including even a considerable quantity of Coca Cola, some ice cream and 25 copies of the May Consolidator!

Last minute preparations progressed unhurriedly. The eyes and words of Major Fleet, Frank Learman, Bert bowling, Jim Kelly, Barney Boyd (W6LYY) Hank Golem, and many others were exchanged in farewell wishes of bon voyage. The "Guba" was swung around and her compass checked. She swung once again towards the water. Her crew climbed aboard, others scrambled out. Heads appeared at their flight positions. Interphone headsets snuggled into place. The right motor turned slowly, caught, whisked away a tuft of smoke and settled to a comfortable cutting of the air. The left engine followed with its comforting tone. The big hawser was attached to the stern and to the tractor behind. Chocks were removed. The "Guba" eased down to the water under the expert handling of the ground crew.

UNKNOWN NEW GUINEA

Circumnavigating the World in a Flying Boat, American Scientists Discover a Valley of 60,000 People Never Before Seen by White Men

By Richard Archbold
(Originally published March, 1941 in National Geographic Magazine Volume 79, Issue 3)

MY THIRD New Guinea Expedition was organized for a complete investigation of virtually unexplored north slopes of the Snow Mountains on the second largest island in the world. How much more it was to accomplish I did not suspect as we took off from San Diego Bay on June 2, 1938, in the Guba, Our twin-engined Consolidated Model 28 flying boat.

We were to discover in the interior of New Guinea a valley of some 60,000 people whose existence had not been recorded. Cutting sky trails over three oceans and three continents, we were to be the first to fly around the world nearest its greatest circumference, the Equator.Our route was by way of Honolulu and Wake Island, Skipping Midway, and thence to Hollandia, in Netherlands New Guinea. Just after sunrise on June 10 we alighted on Humboldt Bay, where we were greeted by members of our expedition who had gone ahead. The trip had consumed eight days, but our flying time for the 7,236 statute miles had been only 50 hours and 4 minutes.

Fur-lined Suits Over the Equator

Save for a few thunderheads and hail and snowstorm which forced us to put on fur-lined flying suits while crossing the Equator, the voyage had been uneventful. The Guba's flying range was 4,200 miles, and, thanks to the automatic pilot, we had had little to do except when the course was changed or we ran into heavy weather.

My scientific associates were Dr. A. L. Rand, assistant leader and ornithologist; L. J. Brass, botanist; and William B. Richardson, mammalogist. With me on the Guba Were Russell R. Rogers, co-pilot; Lewis A. Yancey, navigator; Raymond E. Booth, radio operator; and Gerald D. Brown and Stephen Barinka, flight engineers.

Brass, Richardson, and Harold G. Ramm, radio operator, had arrived in Hollandia on April 23, and Rand had joined them a month later. Through their efforts, living quarters, godowns, and a radio shack had already been established, and a ramp for the Guba was almost completed. They had injected into the sleepy village--permanent white population four persons--a spirit of activity and industry it had never before seen.

We planned to collect in areas on the northern slope of the Snow Mountains (Sneeuw Gebergte), between the summit of Mount Wilhelmina and the Idenburg River, establishing collecting camps at intervals of 2,000 feet. Results obtained in that unknown region we hoped to connect with those of the Australian section and thus provide the basis for a comprehensive study of the flora and fauna of the entire island. My three New Guinea expeditions were under the sponsorship of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Wholeheartedly co-operating, the Netherlands Indies authorities gave us the assistance of Dr. L. J. Toxopeus, entomologist; Dr. E. Myer-Drees, forester; and an escort of 50 soldiers under command of Captain of the General Staff C. G. J. Teerink, Lieutenants V. J. E. M. Van Arcken and C. W. Schreuder, and Dr. R. Huls, medical officer interested in ethnology.

By June 17 the soldiers, their convict carriers, and 72 Dyaks brought from Borneo as additional carriers and collecting boys had arrived on the monthly steamer, increasing the personnel of our party to 195. The entire expedition, with food and camp-building material and scientific equipment, was flown in the Guba to the interior within 45 days. This feat, Captain Teerink informed me, was the largest scale transport by airplane ever put on in the Netherlands Indies.

Our main inland base was to be on Lake Habbema, 11,342 feet above sea level and 175 miles southwest of Hollandia. Since no plane had ever landed on the lake and none had taken off from water at so high an altitude, we had to make sure that the Guba could lift herself there.

Our plans also called for the establishment of a camp on the Idenburg River and the cutting of a trail across country connecting it with Lake Habbema. Such a trail would serve as a means of retreat should some unforeseen accident put the Guba out of commission. Once on the Idenburg, which empties into the Mamberamo River, we could make our way to the coast in canoes.

We made our first reconnaissance flight on June 21, but clouds lying over the lowlands prevented us from getting a clear picture of what lay below. The next two flights, However, brought astonishing discoveries.

A Valley of 60,000 Population Seen for the First Time by White Men

Between the Idenburg and Lake Habbema we flew over an unmapped valley of the Balim River perhaps 10 miles wide by 40 miles long .

From the number of gardens and stockaded villages composed of groups of round houses roofed with domes of grass thatch, we estimated the population to be a least 60,000. Subsequent meetings with many of the people convinced us that we were the first white men ever to penetrate their isolated domain.

This Grand Valley, as we named it, lies to the north of the Snow Mountains, and its headwaters drain from the northern slopes of Mount Wilhelmina. However, the Balim River breaks through the central range of the Snow Mountains and flows away to the south coast of New Guinea instead of to the north, as on might suppose.

J. H. G. Dremer, on his way to the top of Mount Wilhelmina in 1921, had crossed the headwaters of the river, but he had been too far west to see the valley hidden behind range after range of wooded mountains.

From the air the gardens and ditches and native-built walls appeared like the farming country of Central Europe. Never in all my experience in New Guinea have I seen anything to compare with it.

Lake Habbema appeared beneath our plane, a placid brown body of water surrounded by high hills. To the south the snow-capped top of Mount Wilhelmina, one of the highest of the peaks in the Snow Mountains, looks down on it from a height of 15,580 feet.

Lake Named for Author

We circled the lake several times and ascertained that it is about 2 1/2 miles long and 1 1/4 miles wide, sufficient area for landing and take-off. Although the populated valley of the Balim is only about 15 miles to the east, the lake showed no signs of permanent human habitation. On the way back to Hollandia, we came across a lake about two-thirds of a mile long and a half mile wide lying 31 miles northeast of Habbema. This we learned was called Kadie Meer. It has since been officially designated as Archbold Lake by Netherlands geographic authorities.

Our Idenburg River camp site, only about 150 feet above sea level, offered no obstacles to the Guba. We made a trial landing there on the morning of June 28, sending scores of crocodiles scurrying from the shores into the water.

Before the day was over, Captain Teerink, Lieutenant Van Arcken, five soldiers, and three convict carriers, with food for three months, camp equipment, and a radio transmitting and receiving set, had been transported from Hollandia to the new camp. Since June 29 was the birthday anniversary of the husband of Juliana, Crown Princess of the Netherlands, the camp was given his name, Bernhard.

For ten days thereafter we made flights with men, supplies, and equipment for the construction of a permanent camp which was to serve not only for emergency purposes but also for collecting specimens. It was situated on the bank of the river, above which rose heavily wooded slopes of the mountains.

Dyaks were put to work building canoes. A garden was dug, and beans, corn, lettuce, and other vegetables for general use were planted. Lieutenant Van Arcken even made a little flower garden.

All of us knew that the success or failure of the expedition hinged upon the landing and take-off from Lake Habbema, over two miles high. After careful study of aerial photographs we had made, Rogers, Yancey, Booth, Brown, and I set out from Hollandia early in the morning of July 15. We put aboard emergency supplies for two months, including rifles, pistols, ammunition, portable radio, and other equipment we night need in the event of disaster to the Guba or her failure to rise once she had landed on the lake.

Perilous Landing on a Mountain Lake

Since the minimum depth required for a safe landing was five feet, ropes of that length, attached at one end to a weight and at the other to a float, were dropped into the water. None of the floats remained above the surface. We came down.

An awesome stillness settled upon us as we shut off the engines. I opened the afterhatch and looked about. Thin, firlike trees dotted the hillsides which frowned down on this strange bird of ours. We were on the top of little-known New guinea and entirely dependent for safety upon the two motors of our ship. Were they to fail us, we should be lucky to get back to the coast alive.

Booth and I put over our collapsible boat and ferried the radio and some of the emergency equipment ashore. There the two of us remained while the Guba made a trial take-off. Our purpose was not only to lighten the ship but to be in a position to help if anything unforeseen happened.

Now the moment for the crucial test came. Rogers started the motors, and their thunderous roar echoed and re-echoed through the hills. As the propellers beat against the thin air, I prayed that they would find enough in that high altitude to lift the ship.

Within a minute she was off the water, rose gracefully over the surrounding hills, made a wide circle over the lake, and came down.

Lake Habbema's first settlers--Teerink, Richardson, a sergeant, four soldiers, and a cook--were flown in on July 19 with a cargo of lumber, tents, radio, and a month's emergency rations. The rations were later increased to a three months' supply.

On that day we selected a site for the camp on the northwest side of the lake, put in a pier to be able to discharge cargo direct to the shore, set up a tent for the radio, and put it into operation.

On the ridges the forests were broken by yellowish grassy hollows, and on the slopes rhododendrons made brilliant splashes of red, yellow, and white. Traces of native nomads were in evidence in many places--paths, temporary shelters, and old and broken reed arrows. Often smoke from their fires could be seen in the distance.

By July 31, after a long series of transport flights to Habbema, during which we brought 105 men and more than 60,000 pounds of cargo in the Guba, the camp was a complete, smoothly functioning settlement. We celebrated the day with speeches and a feast, offering toasts to Queen Wilhelmina and the President of the United States.

Two Natives Come to the Party

The occasion was made notable by a visit from two of the natives from the Grand Valley. Others had been seen near by shortly after the camp was opened, but these two willingly accompanied several of our Dyaks who were cutting wood in the forest.

One was evidently a man of some importance. The other, who was younger, perhaps a bodyguard, remained very much on the alert. They squatted on their haunches, their backs toward home, their bows and arrows handy, while we sat down on the camp side of them.

Aside from gourd "aprons," armlets, bracelets, and a coarse mesh net on the head of one, our visitors were naked. They had their brown bodies a most unattractive appearance. The more important of the two men maintained a dignified mien and laughed only when we laughed.

We offered them small cowrie shells, cigarettes, sugar, dried fish, and other gifts. These were first accepted and then handed back, a gesture we interpreted as a sigh of independence. The more important-looking man, however, took a few draws from Teerink's cigar.

The Airplane a Bird to the Natives

This done, he extracted from a capacious bag hung under his armpit a steel ax-head wrapped in bark and held out the prized object for our inspection. The bag was of string ornamented in yellow designs made from the fiber of orchid stems. Offered a new ax by Teerink, the guest refused to accept it. After a friendly 15-minute chat in sigh language, our visitors shook hands all around and departed in the easterly direction.

Later we had many native visitors. Just what they thought of us was hard to ascertain, though they were obviously awed by our constant buzzing over their heads. Our prestige mounted even higher when they saw the great bird swoop down on the lake and all kinds of peculiar things being taken from its "innards" and stored away carefully on shore.

On August 1, Captain Teerink and a party of soldiers, carriers, and a radio operator set out to find the route across the Grand Valley to Camp Bernhard, from Lieutenant Van Archen and another party had started on July 25. The two groups were to meet on the Balim River at a point where a large tributary joined it from the northwest, a position previously determined by a study of aerial photographs.

Terrink's party, making its way through a dense, mossy forest, came next day to a large clearing laid out in neat gardens. There were several huts, and in front of one a man was romping with a child while his wife tended a fire near by. As soon as they saw Teerink's party, the woman and child vanished, but the man sat down, indicating that he was not greatly alarmed by the presence of the first white men ever to penetrate his valley.

He beckoned his visitors into the clearing and began to shout. From all sides men and boys appeared, crying, "Nap! Nap!"--a word of greeting which Terrink and his men zealously repeated. Handshaking followed all around, and the white visitors were led to a good camping spot near a swift little stream.

Handshaking as we practice it was fairly common among these people, but natives in some places greeted us by grasping our wrists. Others would join fingers with us and pull free with a snap.

After setting up tents and a fence to keep the camp clear of a crowd whose curiosity had now overcome its timidity, Teerink and several members of his party took a dip in the stream. The natives gazed in amazement. Perhaps the practice of bathing was new to them. More probably the whiteness of the strangers' bar bodies excited their wonder.

Hospitality became a nuisance as Teerink broke camp the following day. The natives were utterly opposed to his departure and by sign language pleaded with him to remain. they made motions as if shooting with bows and arrows to tell him what kind of treatment he could expect of the people who lived in the country toward which he was headed.

When he ignored their warnings, about 300 of them followed him and his men, shouting and singing uproariously. This strange escort kept pace with the explorers until midday; then several natives ran ahead of the party and placed twigs in the path. Failing to stop the march thus, they made a human barricade across the way, standing arm in arm, five men deep.

The situation was trying, but Teerink soled it by a few sharp words and black looks directed at those who seemed to be in authority. The crowd followed him for only a short distance after that. Apparently they had reached a boundary of some kind and feared to penetrate what probably was enemy territory. The procedure was more or less similar in other villages through which Teerink passed. While annoying, overfriendliness was far easier to contend with than hostility.

Many scars from arrow wounds on the bodies of these people bear witness to warfare among them, but the location of some of the scars indicates that bravery is not one of their outstanding attributes. In settling personal quarrels, they aim their arrows at the legs.

Supplies Dropped by Parachute

On August 6 we replenished Teerink's supplies by attaching them to parachutes and dropping them from the Guba. He received everything but fuel and oil for the gasoline engine which generated power for his portable radio. The last two items floated off and could not be retrieved. Teerink, however, was master of the situation. He sacrificed his bottle of gin to fuel the engine and thus maintained radio communication!

The two parties arrived at the prescribed meeting place on August 14. A checkup of their journeys showed that, if the necessity arose, we could follow their path from Lake Habbema and reach Camp Bernhard in 16 days, an airline distance of 62 miles!

Van Archken's journey was by far the more difficult because of the hilly terrain through which he had to cut his way. He, too, found the people he met friendly. In fact, he reported that the natives encountered on the first few days out of Camp Bernhard bore no wound scars. Evidently they were devoted to the arts of peace.

On August 19, according to arrangements made by radio, we put the Guba down on the Balim near the lower end of the Grand Valley and transported Teerink's party of 34 back to Lake Habbema in two trips. The next day we picked up Van Arcken's 24 men at Kadie Lake and had them back at their starting place in short order.

Since a large and representative collection had been made in the vicinity of Habbema, we were now ready to begin work in the higher areas. On August 26 Captain Teerink and Dr. Rand left the lake to establish camps on the sides of Mount Wilhelmina, and by September 5 all of us were at work on its slopes. Our first camp was about five miles northeast of the peak and the other and higher on about 1 1/2 miles south of east of the summit.

Here on the mountain we continued to run across natives. A party of seven, comprising two men, four boys, and small girl. Passed a night under a cliff near our first camp. Brass and Richardson first saw them on the other side of the valley, traveling slowly in the rain under long, peaked hoods of pandanus leaf. They set down their hoods and loads under the dry shelter of the cliff and by signs conveyed to us that they intended to sleep there, gesturing with the palm of the hand turned outward that we were to keep away.

About an hour later, one of the men paid a visit to our camp. Our scientists agreed that while he and his fellows were in all noticeable respects similar to those who had visited us at Lake Habbema, they appeared to belong to a different locality. Their word of greeting was wai instead of nap.

Finger Joints Sacrificed in Mourning

The visitor was minus two joints of the first and second fingers of the left hand--a mutilation general in the people we saw at Habbema. Upon questioning several, we learned that it is their custom to sacrifice a finger joint as a token of mourning for a close relative.

Scientific results of our work between Habbema and Mount Wilhelmina were eminently satisfactory, many unusual examples of flora and fauna being gathered.

Rand obtained several high-altitude birds of paradise, Snow Mountain grouse, warblers, finches, a small slate-colored flycatcher, a rock bird not found below 14,000 feet, pipits up to the edge of eternal snow, migrating snipe from Siberia, and many other important specimens.

The mammal collection obtained by Richardson included rats three feet long. Among the other specimens were bandicoots, mouse, opossums, and aquatic rodents similar in appearance to diminutive muskrats.

Outstanding among the plants gathered by Brass were 25 species of rhododendrons, brilliant orchids growing in moss on the ground and on trees, and curious tree ferns which grew in open grassland and withstood frost and fire. Buttercups, daisies, gentians, and a host of little alpine flowers grew above timberline and extended down the treeless grass valleys to the altitude of Lake Habbema.

Toxopeus gathered six species of butterflies, moths which were abundant up to 12,465 feet, and flies existing on bare rocks above the limit of vegetation.

We also found crawfish in Lake Habbema, lizards up to timberline, and a snail at 14,000 feet.

Freezing Weather in Equatorial Forests

Back at Habbema on September 30, we were dismayed to see the lake six inches over its banks and to hear by radio that the Idenburg River was threatening to inundate Camp Bernhard.

The days were uncomfortably cold. Washing in the mornings called for breaking the ice in the basins, and a fire had to be kept going in the evenings--all this at a latitude of four degrees south of the Equator!

Brass and Toxopeus set out toward the Grand Valley on October 8 and chose a campsite in the mossy forest at an altitude of 9,352 feet, 5 1/2 miles northeast of Lake Habbema. Where trees had fallen as a result of dry rot, the natives had planted pandanus trees, the nuts of which, eaten raw or smoked, make up an important part of their food supply.

We shipped some of the pandanus seeds by air express to the Coconut Grove Palmetum, in Coconut Grove, Florida. There they germinated but did not survive.

To build a camp, the party had to level a quarter of an acre of forest. Great care had to be taken in felling the trees in order to leave the pandanus uninjured.

At the very beginning of operations one of our Dyaks, careless of warnings not to damage the nut trees, hacked two of the stiltlike prop roots from a young tree. The owner was appeased with a cowrie shell.

Soon another pandanus was threatened by a big tree which was being cut down. All save one of the active onlookers gave permission for the cutting to proceed, but that one stood chattering excitedly, jabbing the butt of his spear into the ground.

Fearing trouble, Brass calmly walked up to him, took hold of his spear, and after an appreciative examination offered a cowrie shell for it. At sight of the shell, the native forgot his anger and parted with the weapon without hesitation. Our Dyaks felled the tree without doing any damage.

While temperamental at times, the natives as a whole remained friendly throughout our stay. Some offered themselves as carriers and helped bring supplies down from Lake Habbema in return for small cowrie shells.

Others brought bananas, sweet potatoes, and often pigs to trade. As a medium of exchange, steel implements did not interest them so much as shells or mirrors. Apparently they regarded their crude stone instruments as far superior.

Natives Turn Collectors to Earn Shells

It did not take them long, however, to learn our major interests. Soon they were bringing in mammals, birds, and insects in return for shells. The butterfly hunters would wrap their catches in leaves and hand the little packages to Toxopeus, the entomologist. Many were worthless, however, because of rough handling.

Brass, our botanist, was the only one who did not get their assistance as collectors. It appears they could not understand what he or any other of these strange white men would want with flowers.

The more we saw of these people who had hewn down great stretches of forest, cleared the land of stumps and stones, and raised large crops, using only crude stone and wooden implements, the more amazed we grew at their simple culture. The agricultural pursuits of natives I saw in other parts of New Guinea were the helter-skelter efforts of children compared with those of the inhabitants of the Grand Valley.

In their gardening, devoted primarily to sweet potatoes, some taro, bananas, and tobacco, they showed an understanding of the basic principles of erosion control and drainage. From the neat stone fences surrounding their carefully weeded fields it was easy to imagine that we were in New England rather than in an isolated valley of the last of Stone Age man.

Like the men, the few women were nude, except for a short skirt and a coarse net bag hung over the back from a band around the forehead. Dr. Huls, who succeeded in getting several of the natives to submit to ethnological measurements, found that their height ranged from 4 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 8 1/2 inches. Nothing, however, could tempt them to submit to a blood test. They have a superstitious fear of giving anyone a particle of their bodies, even a bit of hair or a fingernail.

We found some evidence among them of ceremonial cannibalism, and Dr. Huls believes that, instead of burying their dead, they cremate the bodies.

From the mossy forest we moved down to the south bank of the Bele River. The camp was at an approximate altitude of 7,200 feet, about 14 miles from Lake Habbema.

White Man's Law in the Wilderness

To prevent the ever-curious natives from overrunning the camp, Teerink set up a simple form of government. He appointed two who appeared to be headmen as diplomatic agents, whose function was to handle transactions between the expedition and the natives.

He also delegated two younger men as policemen. These four officials were given white bands to wear around their heads as a mark of their exalted rank. They realized the distinction conferred upon them and for the most part performed their duties well.

One of the policemen, whom the soldiers nicknamed Beo, was able to call members of the expedition by name and showed a remarkable talent in pronouncing Dutch words, even those with the difficult "sch" sound. In addition, he was the only native who dared to eat rice and dried fish and seemed to appreciate coffee and tea. He never tired of lending our men a hand, and when he was not helping with the laundry he was bringing in firewood or performing other useful chores.

On the day our scientists arrived at the Bele River camp, the natives staged a ceremonial dance and feast. It began at 10 o'clock in the morning with an hour of monotonous but sometimes melodious singing. Only the men raised their voices. The women remained silent. When several of our party joined in, the natives appeared delighted and sang with even more gusto.

Several young pigs were brought in and, while they were being slaughtered, fires were built. The natives insist that there is only one way to kill a pig. Two men hold the creature, one the hindquarters and the other the snout. It is then shot by an arrow from a distance of about four feet.

As the pigs were placed upon the fire, a witchlike woman with bow and arrow in hand sprang up and began to harangue the people in a screechy, vehement voice. When she ended her exhortation, the natives divided themselves into groups and began running to and fro, the men singing, the women, for the most part, silent. Again the weird mistress began her screeching, and this time the dancers performed in a ring.

Initiation into a New Guinea Tribe

Four hours later the pigs were carved, and the liver, apparently regarded as the choicest morsel, was given to our men. They got it down after a struggle and were then ceremoniously sprinkled with pig's blood. They were now full-fledged members of the tribe.

At another camp I went through a similar ceremony. Fortunately, the specialty there was baked sweet potato instead of pig's liver.

As our party left the Bele River to establish a camp on the Balim, 23 miles to the southeast, the older natives wept and wrung their hands, while the younger ones looted the camp of old clothes, buckets, bottles, and kerosene tins.

The route to the Balim site was through many villages and across acres of highly cultivated fields. Here the natives seemed to take our party for granted. Some stood by and watched the long line of carriers file by, while others, digging in the gardens of rich black earth, did not even look up. In this part of the valley there were few fences, the gardens being surrounded by carefully dug trenches which served not only to drain the land but to keep out pigs.

The Balim camp was situated on a bank of the river in a grove of sighing casuarinas. Great fields stretched for miles with scarcely a remnant of the original forest remaining.

The natives here appeared to be more placid than those we had met before. Perhaps it was because they are more closely tied to the soil, having no new forest land to bring under crop. The stone and earth walls and their drainage systems of straight, clean-cut ditches are by far the fines I have seen anywhere in New Guinea.

These people were not only excellent agriculturists, but also ingenious engineers. Not far from where our party was encamped they had built a suspension bridge of large forest vines caring a three-foot decking of split timber. I have counted 20 persons crossing it at one time.

The base at Lake Habbema was abandoned in November, and the Guba kept the expedition in supplies by alighting on the Balim. When enough had been brought in to last for several weeks, she was flown to Sydney, Australia, in command of Rogers, for supplies and for adjustment of the Sperry automatic pilot.

Collection results in the Habbema-Balim area were, in some respects, better than in the territory of Habbema-Mount Wilhelmina. Rand obtained a gray and yellow bowerbird, a new genus found in the mossy forest. He also found lories in the treetops, fantail flycatchers in the undergrowth, a new finch in the grassland, and a new nuthatch.

Mammals were more numerous in this area, and Richardson got large and small phalangers (New Guinea opossums), other queer marsupials, numerous rodents, etc.

Brass observed that, as elsewhere in the mountains of New Guinea, heavy population occurs at altitudes in which forests are dominated by oaks. The New Guinea oaks are large trees with evergreen leaves which might pass unrecognized as oak like by the casual observer but for acorns which strew the ground beneath them.

The banks and streams of the Bele and the Balim Rivers also produced a rich collection of insects.

Floods Make Collecting Uncomfortable

The last four months of the expedition were devoted to collecting in a flooded area surrounding Camp Bernhard on the Idenburg River. There we encountered a very different type of native, a nomadic people who moved from place to place in dugouts. Their average height was about five feet. Instead of spears, they carried daggers made of cassowary bones. The presence of a few iron tools among them indicated either that they traded with tribes which had some contact with the coast, or that possibly they had obtained the implements from bird of paradise hunters long ago.

Unlike the Grand Valley people, they were plentifully supplied with dogs, medium-sized creatures which seemed to have most the art of barking but made up for it by a highly perfected, most annoying howl.

Continual rain hampered our party in the four camps on the Idenburg slopes until all were evacuated on May 9, 1939. Despite the handicaps and discomforts, our scientists achieved splendid results. Rand found a wide range of bird life between the mossy forests and the lowland forests. Among birds collected was a little parrot which digs holes in dead trees. Many migrants from Asia were found on the banks of the Idenburg.

Courtship of the Bird of Paradise

Most gratifying, however, was Rand's study of the courtship of the magnificent bird of paradise.

The male bird clears a space on the forest floor for his display. This he guards for months at a time, driving away other males and calling to attract females. Hidden in a little palm-thatched hut on the edge of these display grounds, Rand was able to watch the courtship of the birds without their suspecting his presence.

The male's plumes are used for two purposes: first, to intimidate and frighten away rival males; secondly, to arouse the female to accept him as her mate.

Marriage, however, in these brilliantly colored birds is of short duration. The female retires into the forest by herself to make her nest and raise her brood without assistance from the male. Philanderer that he is, he stays at his display ground throughout the breeding season.

Among the mammals collected by Richardson were flying foxes which hung in a large colony in the swamp forest at the edge of a lagoon; numerous New Guinea opossums, or cuscus, with orange and white markings, commonly seen at dusk in trees above flood water; a new rodent, related to the water rat, dwelling in the mossy forest far from the expected riparian habitat; and wild native pigs, the largest New Guinea mammals. These last added not only to the collection but also to the larder.

At the edge of the forest at Bernhard Camp, Brass found many conspicuous flowering trees and plants, the most brilliant the celebrated D'Albertis creeper with hanging festoons of large pea like flowers of a brilliant, fiery red. He also found the mossy forests of the mountain cloud belt extremely rich in beautiful ferns. In a gully near the camp at 6,000 feet he gathered more than 100 species.

As soon as the packing of collections from the last camps was completed for shipment, the exodus began. The Dyaks returned to Borneo, and the Netherlands contingent to Java. While our scientists and technicians left by steamer, the crew of the Guba and I flew her out of Hollandia to continue the flight westward around the world.

Decision to Fly Around the World

The decision to fly home by the longest way came about while the Guba was in Sydney for supplies.

For several years the Commonwealth of Australia and the British Government had been interested in a proposal made by Captain P. G. Taylor, associate of the late Sir Charles across the Indian Ocean, which had never been flown by airplane. He believed that in event of war it would provide a valuable alternative to the England-Australia route by way of Singapore and Java.

The route he advocated was from Port Hedland, on the northwest coast of Australia, to Mombasa, Africa, by way of the Cocos, Chagos, and Seychelles Islands, thereby connecting with the Imperial Airways operating from Cairo to Cape town. Such a route to Australia would be over territory exclusively British or British-controlled.

As the situation in Europe became more acute, the Australian Government decided to make the survey. Taylor was commissioned to find a ship, but none suitable for so long a journey was available until the Guba arrived in Sydney. He proposed that we make the flight when the work of our expedition was completed in New Guinea.

Rogers, who was in command of the Guba at that time, wired the proposal to me in Hollandia. I accepted, with the proviso that the Commonwealth assume responsibility for fueling and provisioning and that it arrange for me to make biological collections in the islands on the route.

Such a route was not really very much out of our way, and the westward course would place prevailing winds at our advantage. It would also give us an opportunity to circle the globe near its greatest circumference and to pioneer in unflown skies. A new set of engines which had been sent from San Diego as spares was put into the Guba, and on May 12, 1939, we left Hollandia for Sydney, stopping en route at Port Moresby and Townsville and arriving on May 14.

Captain Taylor was put in charge of the Indian Ocean survey. This included the sounding of coral lagoons in the islands to determine their suitability for flying boats, and the collection of information likely to be of value in the establishment of air bases.

We took off from Rose Bay, the seaplane base at Sydney, on the afternoon of June 3 and reached Port Hedland the next morning after a nonstop flight across the continent. It turned bitter cold during the night, and even our fur-lined suits did not keep us comfortable. When the sun rose, the country beneath us looked most unfriendly and desolate. We saw no sigh of habitation until we reached the coast and then only the collection of a few weather beaten buildings called Port Hedland.

Blazing Air Trail over the Indian Ocean

Upon our arrival, we found a weather report from the Cocos indicating fairly good conditions, and after checking the gas remaining in the Guba--capacity 1,750 gallons--we added 1,400 gallons poured from 5-gallon tins and were off that evening on the first stage of the first flight over the Indian Ocean.

All went well until midnight, when rain and thick weather set in. At 2 A.M. we were within the vicinity of the islands but were unable to sight them because of poor visibility. We flew back and forth until daylight, but the sun did not brighten our prospects. The ceiling was 800 feet with 50 feet visibility in rain squalls.

Although we could talk to the radio operator at the Cocos, who said he heard us pass over the islands twice, we could not get a radio bearing. We had been in the air now for nearly 14 hours and could not continue to fly around indefinitely, particularly since the Cocos radio operator had informed us that the rain might continue for two or three days. Unwilling to take any more chances, we laid a course for Batavia, 800 miles away.

Two hours later, as my curiosity got the better of me, I sent a radio to the Cocos, inquiring about weather there. The reply was that the rain had stopped and that the sun was out in all its glory. But it was too late for us to turn back. Our gas was running low, and we continued to Batavia, where we arrived after being in the air for 23 hours and 30 minutes.

We left Batavia on June 7 and detoured from a straight course to fly over Christmas Island to see whether this island, which is rich in phosphate, could afford a harbor suitable for use by an airplane in an emergency. Such did not seem to be the case, however, and we flew on the Cocos.

The two atolls commonly referred to as Cocos are low-lying, and nothing of them shows above the sea except palm trees. The larger atoll is south keeling; the smaller is properly known as North keeling.

Remarkable Government on Cocos

Here in this tiny spot in the Indian Ocean at which ships seldom call, we were royally entertained. We were put up at the barracks of the cable station operators and were also guests of the governor, whose great-grandfather, J. Clunies-Ross, took possession of the islands in 1827.

The present governor, through strict but benevolent rule, keeps some 1,400 natives contented. He has insisted that their houses be spaced far apart and constructed with removable wall panels so that they may be thoroughly aired. The streets are cleanly swept.

A school for household hygiene has been introduced. By removing girls between the ages of 12 and 18 from the main village, so that their only contact with men is with those especially selected and trusted, he has broken the custom of child marriage. A small village on the neighboring island has been established for taking care of these girls.

Women do gardening and housework, while men labor in the copra fields, fish,a dn do special jobs, such as building boats and taking care of the governor's launch. The island has been made as self-sufficient as possible.

The men work at their regular jobs from sunrise to a little after noon. From then on, they may fish and may keep a fair proportion of what they catch. In this way they are able to obtain more food than is allotted to the family unit by the governor from the communal storehouse. When turtles are caught, they are put in a special compound and kept for banquets such as marriage ceremonies and the Christmas holiday, and for the Mohammedan New Year.

There is no money, but each family unit which does its job is properly maintained and is assured of the necessaries of life. Little food is produced on the island; much is imported. The governor is experimenting with a truck garden, and the produce is doled out to each family as it is available. In the regular allotment of food to the natives, meat is issued about once a week and fish twice a week.

While no money changes hands, there is a recognized value to certain foods and articles of clothing. Natives who have shown personal initiative and obtained credit for themselves, aside from their regular allotment, may use this credit for other foods and clothing at the storehouse.

For entertainment, there are supervised games, weddings, and holidays. Marriage is a matter of purchase. The husband gives the father of the bride a gift which is requested bhy the father. It is sometimes necessary for the governor to arbitrate matters of this kind when disputes as to the size of the gift arise.

The governor supplied me with two boys to help with collecting. My offer to take them on a flight was bashfully accepted. The were silent during the ride and displayed little emotion. Upon our departure, however, each of them presented me with an exquisitely worked tortoise-shell brooch.

Salvage from the Emden

The pin itself showed a lack of metal. Practically all the available supply of metal comes from pilgrimages during good weather to North Keeling, where the natives salvage it from the German ship Emden, beached there in the first World War. She was surprised by H. M. A. S. Sydney in the act of destroying the cable station.

We reached Diego Garcia in the Chagos on June 13 after a 14-hour flight and found that it offered even better seaplane facilities than the Cocos. For the comfort of airplane passengers, its one drawback is flies--houseflies, millions of them. Getting rid of them would merely be a matter of cleaning up the island.

Here we enjoyed a delicious coconut-crab dinner. These crustaceans, as big as lobsters, can climb coconut trees and have piner claws strong enough to break the shells of coconuts.

Mahe, in the Seychelles, was reached on June 16, and we were not long finding a suitable base for all types of flying boats.

Thus we had determined that three island groups in the Indian Ocean would make a chain connecting the east coast of Africa with the west coast of Australia. With the installation of radio and weather stations as well as landing facilities, these islands would offer not only an alternate route between Australia and England but a shorter one.

The Seychelles, especially since the decline in the price of spices, have become a residential mecca, particularly for retired British service officers. Their homes border the ocean, and it is a pleasure to motor through their well-kept grounds to see the curious trees. Many of these have been imported, although some, such as the double coconut, or coco de ner, are products of the islands.

Mountains Provide Air Conditioning

The center of the island is too steep and mountainous for habitation. However, these mountains lend beauty to the island and also insure a cool evening breeze. The weather cannot be called hot even during the rainy season. The only really warm weather is during the change of the monsoon period. The islands are too far north to get the terrific hurricanes that strike the Madagascar coast.

After being most hospitably entertained by the Governor of the Seychelles, we were off for Mombasa, where we arrived on June 21.

Captain Taylor left us there to return to Sydney by steamer with a complete report of the survey, while we prepared to make the first flight across Africa in a flying boat. Before taking off for Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, I received the following telegram from Prime Minister R. G. Menzies of Australia: "The Commonwealth Government appreciates the part played by yourself and the crew of the Guba in the trans-Indian Ocean survey flight. Apart from the value of the survey flight, it has been a further example of what can be accomplished under difficult conditions by airmen of our two countries. Australia remembers the part played by your countrymen in Kingsford-Smith's Pacific crossing. Best wishes for the Atlantic crossing and a sage return home."

The exploration and investigation side of our work was over. Ahead of us was only the long journey home to be made as quickly as possible. Across Africa we roared to Kisumu, Coquilhatville, Lagos, and Dakar; across the Atlantic to St. Thomas and Floyd Bennet Field. From there we were taken to the World's Fair for a reception.

With our return to San Diego a few days later, we had completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the world nearest its greatest circumference.