BEGINNING AS A COLLECTOR 39 



making some good discoveries. The western portion 

 of Australia had been very little explored from a 

 Natural History point of view at that time. 



In 1894 I returned to Australia, having with me 

 a man named Mr. Gulliver, whom I had known as 

 a collector in the New Forest. At Rockhampton I 

 picked up my old mate Mr. W. B. Barnard and 

 also Mr. Harry Barnard, and we all went up to 

 Cooktown. After full inquiry I had decided that 

 New Guinea and the South Sea Islands offered better 

 chances to the collector than West Australia. Cook- 

 town was the best Australian seaport from which 

 to set out for the islands. Thenceforth Cooktown 

 was the only point of the civilised world with which 

 I kept in close touch. 



This collecting expedition was my venture solely, 

 and the others were engaged by me as assistants. We 

 outfitted at Cooktown and went on from there to 

 Samarai, New Guinea, in the barquentine Myrtle. 

 On the voyage across we met an Italian collector 

 named Amido, who had been for a spell of six years 

 in New Guinea, and I recollect many of the people 

 on board thinking it a singular thing that he should 

 still be alive. The reputation of the climate was 

 very bad. The reputation of the natives was worse. 

 I have now been in all some eighteen years in New 

 Guinea and the Solomons, and do not consider it 

 impossible to live there fifty years if one is reasonably 

 careful. The average idea about New Guinea and 

 other tropical places is that the climate is worse and 



