Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/249

Rh his young son have made many very interesting journeys in Dutch New Guinea.]

We continued along this unknown coast, and eventually along that of the Dutch part of the island. Countless bits of timber, branches, and huge trees torn up by their roots passed us—the flotsam and jetsam borne down by the current of the great Amberno River which drains Dutch New Guinea. This current 13 miles out at sea is a river, and very deep. It has a large delta, and but only one of its mouths has been ascended for about 60 miles by van Braam Morris. We passed through its current in the night. An enormous shark followed us for a long time at this part.

The fascination of gazing into unknown lands is extreme and draws one strongly. I sat and looked at the Mysterious Land with a great craving to penetrate its recesses. To make known the unknown, to write names on the blank spaces of the map of this globe, is a thing that has only been done by men taking their lives in their hands and risking everything; and how countless are the lives laid down in this cause! But, had it not been for such brave, self-controlled, enduring, and fine-spirited men, how would the world ever have been known? To come nearer home, where, too, would be the British Empire? In my eyes the bravest and most heroic of human beings are the Antarctic and Arctic explorers, who have to and moral possess the very highest qualities in man—physical courage, endurance under terrible privations in terrible climates, resource, absolute self-control, and unselfishness; their daily life when marching in that terrific cold is the constant practice of the most heroic endurance and bravery, beside which the most daring deeds of bravery on the field of battle are but child's play.