Adventures in New Guinea

Adventures in New Guinea

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Chalmers
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Title: Adventures in New Guinea
Author: James Chalmers

Release Date: February 6, 2006 [eBook #17694]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINEA***

Transcribed from the 1886 Religious Tract Society edition by David
Price, email [email protected]
THE R. T. S. LIBRARY--ILLUSTRATED

ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINEA BY JAMES CHALMERS OF
PORT MORESBY
WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65,
ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD; AND 164, PICCADILLY 1886.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
[Port Moresby: title.jpg]

INTRODUCTION.
Public attention has been repeatedly and prominently directed to New
Guinea during the last few months. The name often appears in our
newspapers and missionary reports, and bids fair to take a somewhat
prominent place in our blue-books. Yet very few general readers
possess accurate information about the island itself, about the work of
English missionaries there, or about the part New Guinea seems
destined to play in Australian politics. Hence a brief sketch indicating
the present state of knowledge on these points will be a fitting
introduction to the narratives of exploration, of adventure, and of
Christian work contained in this volume.
New Guinea, if we may take Australia as a continent, is the largest
island in the world, being, roughly speaking, about 1400 miles long,
and 490 broad at its widest point. Its northernmost coast nearly touches
the equator, and its southernmost stretches down to 11 degrees south
latitude. Little more than the fringe or coastline of the island has been
at all carefully explored, but it is known to possess magnificent
mountain ranges, vast stretches of beautiful scenery, much land that is
fruitful, even under native cultivation, and mighty rivers that take their
rise far inland. Its savage inhabitants have aroused powerfully the

interest and sympathy alike of Christian Polynesians and English
missionaries, who, taking their lives in their hands, have, in not a few
instances, laid them down in the effort to win New Guinea for Christ.
At some remote period of the past, New Guinea, in all probability,
formed a part of Australia. Torres Strait itself is only about sixty miles
wide; the water is shallow; shoals and reefs abound, giving the sailor
who threads the intricate and dangerous navigation the impression that
he is sailing over what was once solid earth.
The first European sailor who sighted the island was D'Abreu, in 1511;
the honour of being first to land belongs most probably to the
Portuguese explorer, Don Jorge De Meneses, in 1526, on his way from
Malacca to the Moluccas.
Into the somewhat intricate history of the connection of the Dutch with
the north-west coast of New Guinea we cannot here enter. As suzerain
nominally under the Sultan of Tidore, they claim possession of the
western part of the island as far east as Lat. 141 degrees 47' E. The
trade they carry on is said to be worth about 20,000l. a year. Dutch
missionaries have for many years been stationed around the coast of
Geelvink Bay.
In 1770, Captain Cook visited the south-west coast, and in 1775, an
English officer, Forrest by name, spent some months on the north-east
coast in search of spices. In 1793, New Guinea was annexed by two of
the East India Company's commanders, and an island in Geelvink Bay,
Manasvari by name, was for a time held by their troops.
Partial surveys of the south coast were made in 1845 by Captain
Blackwood, who discovered the Fly River; by Lieutenant Yule, in 1846,
who journeyed east as far as the island to which he has given his name;
and in 1848 by Captain Owen Stanley, who made a fairly accurate
survey of the south-east coast.
The most important survey work along the coast of New Guinea was
done in 1873 by H.M. ship Basilisk, under the command of Captain
Moresby. He discovered the now-famous harbour, Port Moresby; he

laid down the true eastern coastline of the island, discovering the China
Straits, and exploring the north-east coast as far west as Huon Gulf.
In many parts of the world Christian missionaries have been the first to
get on friendly terms with the natives, and thus to pave the way for
developing the resources of a savage country and leading its inhabitants
in the paths of progress and civilization. Pre-eminently has this been
the case in South-eastern New Guinea. White men had landed