BEST ROUTE INTO THE INTERIOR. 291 



salt, and the rivers mostly trickling shallow streams, 

 running over rocks or sands, the rivers of New 

 Guinea are so full, and abounding with fresh water, • 

 as to influence the sea for miles outside their mouths, 

 and expel the salt-water even from the flattest 

 and most sluggish part of their course. Any craft, 

 then, that can get across the mud-flats off their 

 mouths, need never fear the being unable to find 

 water enough for many miles above them. No 

 doubt some channels will be much more shoal than 

 others, but a small light steamer, drawing about six 

 feet of water, might probably penetrate for a couple 

 of hundred miles, or into the very heart of the 

 country. We had no means of judging which would 

 be the best channel to take, except that the large 

 southern arm (in lat. 8° 45'), which Captain Black- 

 wood first visited, seemed both the largest, and to 

 have the deepest water at its mouth. I know of no 

 part of the world, the exploration of which is so 

 flattering to the imagination, so likely to be fruitful 

 in interesting results, whether to the naturalist, the 

 ethnologist, or the geographer, and altogether so 

 well calculated to gratify the enlightened curiosity 

 of an adventurous explorer, as the interior of New 

 Guinea. New Guinea! the very mention of being 

 taken into the interior of New Guinea sounds like 

 being allowed to visit some of the enchanted regions 

 of the " Arabian Nights," so dim an atmosphere of 

 obscurity rests at present on the wonders it probably 

 conceals. 



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