LOST ENTOMOLOGIST

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 166, 3 April 1939, Page 2

LOST ENTOMOLOGIST

WIFE’S STRANGE DREAM QUEST IN ISLANDS LONDON, Feb. 20.—Because she dreamed that her husband, who ivas. thought to have been drowned! at sea--10 years ago, is still alive, 63-year-old Mrs. Olive Branseu, of Hammersmith, is to give up her home in England to search for him among the islands of the Alia lay Peninsula. “My dream that- my husband is still alive is so vivid and so frequent that I believe* it is some kind of message,” she said. He was an entomologist, and he was believed to have been drowned when, he was returning from one of his but-terfly-hunting expeditions* round the islandsnj ear New Guinea. “A sudklen storm blew up and the native boat in which liei was sailing" capsized. I was told that he was dragged under by a swift current, and that the crew, after sailing round the spot for hours without seeing him reappear, put back to land. White Medicine Man. “But in my dreams lie is always rescued by ai native fishing boat and taken to a native village where he is nursed back to life. “What makes me certain that my husband is still living is that in a number of letters I have received from my friends in Australia they sny tliat the natives are talking about a marvellous white ‘medicine-man’ who lives among the islands. “He is said to be a tall, bearded, white man with grey hair, who can cure diseases and especially indigestion, from which the natives suffer. “The description fits my husband-, and as lie had a great- knowledge of medicine, I am! certain it- is he. Lost Memory. “I think the reason why he havnever attempted to get back to civilisation is that his terrible experience caused him to lose his meinory. “And now I am going out to' find. liiin. I am going to Darwin, where I shall stay with friends. “I have, a little money, ami 1 am. going to buy a native craft and sail round the islands until I find him. “I shall know the right island when 1 reach it. “I have seen it so frequently in my dream that I feel, that 1 have been* there already. I think it is one of the tiny islands in the Banda group - practically on the equator. “I ain| not going to bring my husband back to civilisation when I find him. We will make a permanent home on the islands, and I will help him with his work of healing.”