TWO YEARS AMONG NEW 
GUINEA CANNIBALS 
CHAPTER I 
BREAKING THE GROUND 
In the course of thirty years of almost continuous 
journeyings in both hemispheres, it has been my 
fortune to stray far from the beaten tracks and to 
know something of the spell and mystery of the 
earth’s solitudes. My work in quest of additions 
to the great natural history collections, both public 
and private, of England, and to a less extent of 
France, has led me to the Rocky Mountains, the 
Amazons, the Republic of Colombia, the Yangtse 
gorges, and the snows of ‘Tibet; but it is safe to 
say that none of these has aroused my interest and 
curiosity in so great a degree as the scene of my 
latest and my next expedition, the still almost un- 
explored Papua, second largest of the world’s islands, 
and almost the last to guard its secrets from the 
geographer, the naturalist, and the anthropologist. 
Fifty years ago, schoolboys, looking at their map 
of Africa, blessed the Dark Continent for an easy 
place to learn. A few names fringed the coast: 
inland nearly all was comprehended under the cheerful 
word ‘‘unexplored.” Such in great measure is the 
19 
