The daring explorers and painstaking surveyors came and went,

but the great island remained a land of dread and mystery,
guarded by the jagged reefs of its eastern shores, and the
shallow mud flats, stretching far to sea-ward beyond the mouths
of the great rivers of its southern coast
The daring explorers and painstaking surveyors came and went,
but the great island remained a land of dread and mystery,
guarded by the jagged reefs of its eastern shores, and the
shallow mud flats, stretching far to sea-ward beyond the mouths
of the great rivers of its southern coast. So inaccessible was
Papua that even the excellent harbor of Port Moresby, the site:
of the present capital, was not discovered until 1873. One has
but to stifle for a while in the heavy air that flows lifeless
and fetid over the lowlands as if from a steaming furnace, or
to scent the rank odors of the dark swamps, where for centuries
malaria must linger, to appreciate the reason for the
long-delayed European settlement of the country. But those who
blaze the path of colonial progress are not to be deterred by
temperatures or smells; let us remember that Batavia, 'the
white man"s graveyard,' is now one of the world"s great
commercial centers; and Jamaica, the old fever camp of the
British army, is now a health resort for tourists.