THE NEW GUINEA EXPEDITIONS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1292, 3 September 1883, Page 2

THE NEW GUINEA EXPEDITIONS.

The ' Age ' has heard from its commissioner (Mr Ernest Morrison), who, with his party, had crossed the Lalokoi River, and camped thirty miles inland from Port Moresby. This is hi& description of a mangrove swamp :- — Nothing can exceed the toilsomeness of endeavouring to penetrate such country. It is a serious matter to lose your way in one of these labyrinthine thickets, for the sunlight is often completely shut out, and as you go stumbling along in a most oppressive atmosphere — now plunging in an unexpected pit of slime, through missing yoar foothold on the tortuous twigs, and now narrowly escaping impalement from a projecting bough — you feel a good deal like a rat in a cage, vainly endeavoring to beat his way through the imprisoning bars. These mangroves flourish exceedingly on the belts of alluvial soil fringing; the sea, and in the shallow lagoons which abound in many places ; each tree, throwing forth pendulous roots from its branches, takes firm hold of the muddy ground, as the octupus holds its prey by the numerous suckers, and the mangroves can resist the ocean's might. At high tide they are often nearly covered by the salt water, and; at low tide they present a curious spectacle of dripping, intertwining loops, which seem to be artificially supporting the weight of the tree. These dense thickets are splendid breakwaters. Their mazes greatly promote the growth of land. Ever encroaching on the sea, they are the conquerors of the ocean surge. When the water has retired from the mazy coverts, the muddy ooze is seen to be teeming with an endless variety of life. Brilliantly-colored crabs, lizards, snakes, thousands of mulluscs, with quantities of animal and vegetable matter in rank decay, giving birth to all manner of slimy and creeping things, are seen rioting together under the hot sun like maggots in carrion. No wonder the breath of these dank forests is often fatal to white men. In some places these gaunt mangroves, closely packed, rise in a dark mass of foliage to a height of 70ft. The lower branches, which are. submerged at every full tide, look very strange when they are seep covered with barnacles and mussels. It looks as though these lower marine creatures grew on the trees. I could not name half the curious kinds of marine life which swarm in these sultry places. There is one amphibious fish known as the close-eyed gudgeon (" Jumping Johuny " sailors always call it), which leaps like a frog, and can climb amongst the roots of the mangroves in search of its tiny prey. The sea birds gorge themselves at the luscious banquet spread for them at low water in the mangrove thickets. There is a fine field for the naturalist in these thickly populated beds.