1913, Massy Baker the explorer, discovered a lake probably 100
miles or more in shore-line, which had remained hidden in the
midst of the dark forests of the Fly and Strickland River
regions, and here savages still in the stone age, who had never
seen a white man, measured the potency of their weapons against
the modern rifle.

To-day there are vast areas upon which the foot of the white
man has not yet trodden, and of all the regions in the tropical
world New Guinea beckons with most alluring fascination to him
to whom adventure is dearer than life.

Far back in the dawn of European exploration, the Portuguese
voyager Antonio de Abreu, may have seen the low shores of
western New Guinea, but it is quite certain that sixteen years
later, in 1527, Don Jorge de Meneses cruised along the coast
and observed the wooly-headed natives whom he called "Papuas."
The name "New Guinea" was bestowed upon the island by the
Spanish captain, Ynigo Ortz de Retes, in 1515, when he saw the
negroid natives of its northern shores.

Then there came and passed some of the world's greatest
navigators. Torres wandering from far Peru, to unknowingly
discover the strait which bears his name; Dampier, the
buccancer-adventurer, and, in 1768, the cultured, esthetic
Bougainville, who was enraptured by the beauty of the deep
forest-fringed fjords of the northeastern coast. Cook, greatest
of all geographers, mapped the principal islands and shoals of
the intricate Torres Strait in 1770; and a few years later came
Captain Bligh, the resourceful leader of his faithful few,