PROFESSOR AND EXPLORER.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1921, Page 5

PROFESSOR AND EXPLORER.

COLONEL HIRAM BINGHAM. VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND. Colonel Hiram Bingham, a noted American explorer, and Professor of LatinAmerican History at Yale University, is at present visiting Auckland, haying arrived from Samoa hy the steamer Navua last week. Colonel Bingham, who is a native of Honolulu, in addition to holding several American university degrees, is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London. H e has done considerable eiploHaPion .work in South America, principally in Peru, where he made a close study of the territory formerly occupied by the Incas. He has made five expeditions to South America for the Yale University and the National Geographical Society. His investigations have covered many fields of scientific research, including zoology and botany, and on his last visit to the Southern Continent he was accompanied by about a dozen scientists and their assistants. Colonel Bingham served in the American air service in France in 1919. On his visit to New Zealand, which will extend over two or three weeks, he is accompanied by Mr. G. H. Myers, of Washington, who was formerly in the American forestry service. Having travelled from Honolulu to Pago Pago by the Ventura, Colonel Bingham spent three weeks in Samoa. He states that he was, on the whole, favorably impressed with what he saw of the natives of the islands. There had, he remarked last evening, , been some discontent among the natives both of American Samoa and of the territory now oontrolled by the New Zealand Government under the mandate from the League of Nations, but the trouble appears to have moderated considerably. Much of the trouble that had arisen appeared to have been due to the failure of the, native mind to readily comprehend the economic changes brought about by war. The rise in the cost of living was one cause of discontent, but the murmnrings on this score now appeared to be subsiding. Colonel Bingham’s close knowledge of Hawaii and its natives, who have so much in common with the Maoris, has led him to look Jorward with interest to an opportunity of obtaining some first-hand information regarding the history and characteristics of the Maoris. After a short stay in the Dominion he will proceed from Wellington to San