Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/253

Rh Antarctic explorer, Dr. Jean Charcot, to whom I have to give thanks for an honour that touched me deeply; my good friend, Lieutenant Wilhelm Filchner, leader of the German Antarctic expedition with the ship Deutschland; and many a talk have I had with my friend, Dr. Douglas Mawson, who is going to, I am sure, make the name of Australia renowned in Polar annals also. My best good wishes go with them all, and they know it. Then we have Captain Scott at work also, and a letter from his expedition when it touched the Antarctic continent has reached me, so that my interest never fades.

I have faith, too, that the secrets of the mysterious land, what lies hidden within the recesses of unknown New Guinea, will ere long be revealed to the world.]

Polar explorers are my heroes, and in a lesser degree I honour those other explorers who have made known to us the world, and particularly those gallant men of long ago, who in their little frail ships faced every danger and hardship with such indomitable spirit. It is wonderful what they did, simply wonderful, and it is for mankind in general they did it. Dampier, Tasman, Cook; and all those others are never out of one's thoughts here, and yet in the long space of time since they lived and died how very little has been done in these regions—and yet how much! Think of Australia alone—parts of which I have seen grow under my own eyes, and have even known some of the first white men who ever set foot on a part of its shores—the now colony of Victoria—and made of it in such a short space of time so great a land. The story of that fine race, the Hentys, ought to stimulate any one. Some of them I have known. They, the first white settlers in Victoria, and one of whom was the first white child born in that colony, did