NEW GUINEA 183 



take ; and our journey, on that account, was a long and 

 rough one, considering the distance we had to travel. 



We passed many small coral islands, a few of which 

 were inhabited. A part of New Guinea, or Papua, a 

 high rocky promontory, was sighted about noon of the 

 6th, and we ran within a mile of the shore. The first 

 discoverers of America never looked with more long- 

 ing toward the new land than did we toward this as 

 yet little-known part of the world. We were to 

 explore parts of this country where white man had 

 never before placed his foot, and perhaps we should 

 find animals and plants before unknown. And then 

 the strange inhabitants of that new land what an 

 opportunity for the student of ethnology ! 



As we were ninety miles north of Port Moresby, and 

 the wind was dead ahead, we turned about, and put 

 out to sea again, to make a long tack down the coast. 

 A sudden squall struck us just after ; and, part of the 

 rigging giving way, we were carried by the wind many 

 miles to leeward before it could be mended. 



The next day, about noon, we ran in again, and 

 found ourselves after battling with the wind and 

 raging sea for twenty-four hours in almost the same 

 place we had left the day before, owing to distance 

 lost by the accident. 



Hunter, who came on board drunk, was feeling 

 pretty frisky for a day or two ; and, after he became 

 somewhat sobered, he had a terrible headache, and lay 



