Untitled

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1952, 7 April 1875, Page 2

New GuiNEA.-'-Captain Strachan, who has just returned from a visit to the Islands of New Guinea, writes to the Cooktown Herajd:—"The Island Raine was one gigantic fowl roost, so thick that it was almost impossible to walk without treading on young birds or epgs, of which there were many varieties—tern, noddies, three different species of gannet, the booby, the frigate bird, curlew, snipe, and landrail, besides a beautiful stork-like bird, which to us was entirely new, Each of the above form a little colony^y themselves, attackipg with great vigor and fierceness any stranger who may be unfortunate or impudent enough to venture amongst them, which attacks usually end in the death of the intruder. Being lagoon shaped, much water rests in the centre after rain, but owing to the number of birds is totally unfit for use. The soil is in many parts so soft that one sinks knee-deep in greasy phosphatic matter, and one of the lads sank up to his neck. As we stand on the high part of the Islands-twenty feet above high-water mark—we behold <he great white rollers of the, Great Barrier extending up and down the coast as far as the eye can reach, while the Alice Maud lies snugly moored in four fathoms of water, with her anchors securely placed behind coral clumps, on which there is not more than six feet at low water. Ten yards from her stern the reef breaks off abruptly, decending with precipitous steepness to a depth of 150 to 200 fathomj."