a broad valley the altitude of which above sea-level is 
about one mile. The length of the valley is some fifty 
miles, the breadth from eight to 14 miles. The valley is 
bounded on the west by Mount Hagen, on the east by 
the Chimbu massif, on the north by the lofty Bismarck 
range with Mount Wilhelm towering 15,400 feet high, 
and on the south by Mount Kubor, 14,000 feet high, and 
its abutments. Lying five or six degrees south of the 
equator and enjoying an abundant rainfall, it basks in 
eternal summer. How inviting must have been the pros- 
pect, when European eyes first viewed this valley from 
the ground, with its luxuriant vegetation and its riot of 
strange wild flowers, hardly more than 80 years ago, in 
1933! The Australian party headed by the Leahy broth- 
ers that first penetrated this valley could have experienced 
the awe of discovery that attends the first view of a green 
and enchanting land—the first view, that is, by persons 
of the modern world. They found the valley inhabited 
by a farming population, perhaps some 30,000 in num- 
ber, ranging in color from deep copper to black, their 
hair crinkly, normal in stature and of good physique, all 
speaking the same language with dialectal differences. 
At least one group of these people called their speech 
Yuw, by which in their language they meant ‘real 
speech’, to distinguish it from all the other languages 
and dialects. All the languages were unwritten, of course. 
We know now that the language of the Wahgi is closely 
related to Medlpa, spoken by the Mount Hagen tribes. 
Presumably in the not distant past one people speaking 
a single tongue split up, and in isolation each developed 
out of the original stock its own language. Their remoter 
origins are not yet known. ‘The ‘mushroom madness’ is 
a feature of both cultures, although it seems to be dying 
out among the MedIpa speakers. 
When the Australians arrived on the scene thirty years 
[2] 
