Dec. 23, 1875] 



NATURE 



153 



THE VOYAGE OF THE "CHEVERT" TO NEW 

 GUINEA 



■jyTR. WILLIAM MACLEAY, of Sydney has, in a letter to 

 ■'•■*• the Sydney Herald, given an accoxint of his expedition to 

 New Guinea, an abstract of which, though so small in its results, 

 will no doubt interest our readers. 



The Chn'ert sailed from Port Jackson on the 1 8th of May 

 last with a crew of twenty, together with a doctor, four zoologi- 

 cal and three botanical collectors. Captain Onslow, and Mr. 

 Macleay. The ship was fitted up chiefly with the object of 

 making collections in all branches of Natural History in the 

 islands of Torres Straits and in New Guinea. 



The voyage from Sydney to Cape York occupied a month, five 

 days being spent in the Palm Islands, and six at Cape Grenville. 

 On the 4th of June a stoppage was made at Brookes Island; and on 

 the next day on the north-west of the North Barnard Isles, in 

 the latter case with the object of getting a species of Ptilyris 

 peculiar to the island, and Mr. Masters was so fortimate as to 

 procure a male and two female specimens in the course of the 

 afternoon. The next stage was Fitzroy Island, where a few 

 birds were obtained ; but much progress was prevented by the 

 dense brushwood, which was also found in Palm Island. 



On the next day the Cfuvert anchored off a low wooded sand- 

 bank, marked on the chart "Low Wooded Isle." It was sur- 

 rounded by an extensive coral reef, the first seen on the voyage. 

 They afterwards reached Turtle Reef, opposite the Endeavour 

 River, passing a belt of country on the mainland which looks 

 ▼ery promising. A belt of low land near the coast was backed 

 up by steep hUls of about 2,000 feet elevation, the whole densely 

 wooded, with numerous landslips, showing a dark red soil. On 

 June 8th, Number 4 Howick Group was reached, after passing a 

 mainland which consisted, for a long distance back, of bare 

 sandhills with elevated patches, forming Capes Bedford, Flattery, 

 and Lookout. The next stage was Flinders Island, near which 

 the land is very rough and rocky. Two days took them to Cape 

 Grenville, where they supplied themselves with water. The 

 weather being stormy and wet, not many specimens were pro- 

 cured. The land in the neighbourhood is the most barren that 

 can be imagined. The rock is a kind of metamorphic sand- 

 stone, ^vith sometimes a sub-horizontal stratification, quite ver- 

 tical on the hills, with sharp laminated edges. The vegetation 

 is scanty, the lower hills being clothed with coarse grass, dwarf 

 grevilleas, &c. ; the higher ranges being thinly clothed with 

 acacias, banksias, and pandanus ; the declivities and gullies 

 alone being densely wooded ; whilst near the water's edge the 

 mangrove predominates. The natives are tolerably numerous, 

 and for Australians above the average, well grown and deve- 

 loped. They know a little English, can appreciate tobacco and 

 biscuits, and are good workers. They adopt the practice of 

 cutting the ear-lobe into thin strips, as do the imtives of Cape 

 York, the islands of the Torres Straits, and New Guinea. 



On the 1 8th of June, after sailing liirough Albany Passage, 

 the Cheverl anchored in Mud Bay. The settlement of Somerset, 

 of which some years ago the Government had hopes, has proved 

 imsuccessful, except as a pearl fishery, on which occupation 

 about 700 men are employed. The fishing-grotmd lies almost 

 entirely to the west of Cape York, and extends from Endeavour 

 Straits and the Gulf of Carpentaria northwards to thej very 

 shores of New Guinea. Diving dresses are much employed in 

 the fishery. 



The vessel was detained in Mud Bay till Jime 26th for the 

 Sydney mail. Not much collecting-work was accomplished in 

 the densely-wooded, h\x\.J>auvre neighbourhood, which is entirely 

 composed of a very hard ferruginous sandstone. She then took 

 a course due north to Warrior Island, a distance of sixty miles, 

 stopping off the Sue Islands, where the anchorage is perfectly 

 covered with masses of the yotmg pearl shells. Warrior Island 

 is a mere sandbank of small extent, and without vegetation ; but 

 it is the birthplace and home of the strongest, most numerous, 

 and most adventurous of the races inhabiting the Torres Straits, 

 who closely resemble the inhabitants of New Guinea. 



On June 28th the Chevert proceeded on its course to New 

 Guinea, making for the entrance to the Katow River. They 

 dropped anchor i4 miles from the mouth of that river, and the 

 village of Mohatta. The following morning they were visited by 

 two canoes with about twelve men in each. In one was Maino, 

 the head-man of the village, in the other Owta, the head-man 

 of a village three miles further west. They came on board with 

 the utmost confidence, though they could never have seen so big 



a vessel before. It was explained to them, through interpreters, 

 that the visit was a friendly one, with no other object than the 

 collection of specimens ; both Maino and Owta expressing a 

 desire to assist, and inviting the crew ashore. Shortly afterwards 

 twenty-two of the men landed in the fishing and surf boats, and 

 were received at the village by the elder members of the tribe 

 seated in a circle upon a large piece of new matting. They 

 would not join in the company and participate in the smoking ; 

 those forming the circle consequently arose, perhaps not the best 

 pleased. 



The village consists of seven houses, exactly like those 

 described by Jukes in the voyage of the Fly. Each house is ninety 

 or 100 feet long^ elevated about 6 feet from the groimd, and 

 covered with a thick thatch. The ends are open, and on each 

 side are the sleeping places of the inmates. Each house holding 

 about 50 people, so the population of the village must have been 

 about 350. The houses are built near the sea, and are every- 

 where surroimded by mud, filth, and stench. The people are 

 powerful and well made, jet black, with straight foreheads and 

 Jewish noses, the projecting jaws of the Australian being absent. 

 The bair is woolly, but grows in small tufts, which, when long, 

 form close, compact ringlets ; and it is not uncommon for the 

 people, not here only, but at Warrior and Damley Islands, to cut 

 off their hair when thus grown into ringlets, and convert it into a 

 wig for their own use. The men are quite naked ; some being 

 marked like the Australians with seams on the shoulders, 

 all cutting the lobes of their ears into fantastic shapes and 

 piercing the rim all round, and ornamenting it with coloured wool 

 or fibre. They seem fond of ornaments of birds' feathers for the 

 head, and necklets of pearl-shell. The women are kept from the 

 view of strangers, but they are in no way beautiful. They are 

 the hewers of wood and drawers of water. Their clothing is a 

 scanty loin-covering, with ornaments of cassowary feathers round 

 the knees and ankles. 



Almost the only weapons of defence are bamboo bows and four- 

 feet arrows. They use kava, said to be obtained some distance 

 up the country. They are great navigators, their canoes, of great 

 size,' being formed of excavated trtmks of large coral trees (Ery- 

 thrina). Their supply of animal food is chiefly from pigs, which, 

 both ^^-ild and tame, are numerous. 



The appearance of the country is the same everywhere. In 

 some places the mangrove seems to grow out into the sea ; in 

 others, as at Mohatta, there is a beach closely belted by cocoa- 

 nut palms, and behind, everywhere the same absolutely level 

 mud flat, without the slightest apparent rise as far as the eye can 

 reach, and all densely covered with trees of all sizes and kinds, 

 never reaching more than three or four feet above the sea and 

 river leveL The driest spots have been selected by the natives 

 for their banana and tare plantations. They also ctiltivate yams, 

 sago, and bread-fruit 



All efforts to penetrate the jungle proving ineffectual, an 

 attempt was made to navigate the river in a steam launch and 

 surf boat. At its mouth the Katow is about 200 yards wide, 

 rapidly narrowing to 60 yards, and soon to 30 yards. For the 

 first two miles Mr. Macleay and his party, accompanied by 

 Maino and Owta, passed through a dense forest of mangrove, 

 beyond which the river was edged by a palm nearly 50 feet in 

 height. Behind these was the lofty and interminable forest. 

 After ascending the river for between eight and nine miles they 

 were abruptly stopped by a tree of great size which had fallen, 

 or been feUed, across the river. They had to retium in order to 

 obtain instruments for removing the obstruction. As they in 

 this however never succeeded, they had to return to Warrior 

 Island, whence they made for Daxnley Island, at which place 

 some successful dredging was accomplished. This they left on 

 Aug. 13 for Hall Sound, on the east side of the Gulf of Papua, 

 which they reached after much difficulty firom adverse winds. 

 The ship's captain declined to go further on this accoimt. Yule 

 Island forms the sea face of this Sound, and the opening on the 

 north side between the island and the main is merely a shallow 

 sandbank. The anchor was dropped dose to the north-west 

 point of the island, opposite the residence of Signor D'Albertis, 

 the enthusiastic Italian naturalist, which can be seen perched on 

 the side of a clear hill, about 100 feet above the water. Signor 

 D'Albertis had established himself on Yule Island some months 

 previovisly, in this his second expedition to New Guinea, and 

 though, as Mr. Macleay tells us, he has encountered serious diffi- 

 culties from the desertion of most of his men, the loss of his 

 boat, and robbery by the natives, he still persists in holding his 

 ground and prosecuting the object of his wanderings — the collec- 

 tion of objects of natural history. Assuredly if pluck, per- 



