NEW GUINEA.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3619, 2 August 1880, Page 3

NEW GUINEA.

Baron Mielouho Maclay, the Bussian • explorer, has returned to Cooktown from New -Guinea, where for three years and a-half he has been a resident, and during

that time has amassed a considerable

fund of scientific information. Baron Miclay contemplates at some future day to publish t work (states the Cooktown Courier) which wiH be a valuable contribution to the scientific literature of the

day, especially as little or nothing is known of the interior of New Guinea,

and no record sufficiently reliable has erer been furnished treating vpon the life, customs, &c, of the islanders. This adventurous traveller for a long series of months, lived constantly surrounded by the natives, who were totally ignorant of Europeans, and had not merged beyond the stone age. At first their attention were more demonstrative than agreeable ; but as the stranger exhibited no fear/ the savages - gradually assumed a quieter tone, and were uniformly kind. Baron Maclay at - times experienced a scarcity of sustenance, animal food being at certain seasons a rarity, and at others the tropical rays of the sun completely withering vegetation, despoiling the earth of its yield and causing partial starvation to the inhabitants. Slight traces of gold only were found, the opinion of the baron that payable gold would never be discovered there.