Long ago is far away : accounts of the early exploration and settlement of the Papuan Gulf area

Abstract

There are moments when I know just how that coelacanth felt when the African fisherman dragged her up into a power boat. This book is an attempt to present the activities and motivations of a generation whose writings are fossilised in archives. I hoped, because I was influenced by that generation, that I could interpret their efforts in such a way that people here and now would at least sympathise with their strivings even though they believe them to be misguided. That is what I have been telling myself anyway. In fact I have enjoyed myself collecting the records of people who happened to come to the rivers that flow into the Gulf of Papua: from the visit of the Fly in 1845 up until 1929 when government influence appeared to have been established and the world depression was thwarting those who had hoped to develop the country by European standards.