Early Papua.

(By Arthur I. Vogan, F.R.E.S., etc.)

JN the last issue of the “P.I.M.” ap peared some interesting facsimilis of letters written by that first European explorer to reach the summit of the famous Owen Stanley range (1887), the late Carl H. Hartmann, the noted botanist.

This has brought letters from various old-timers who knew Hartmann; and the sole surviving son of this remark able man has sent me an old photo

graph of his father, which is produced herewith.

Mr. S. Stephens, probably the best known and respected citizen of that eerie-town, wind-swept Toowoomba, found out for me Mr. Charles H. Hart mann, of Orchard Vale, Pittsworth, the only surviving child of the explorer who proved himself, in the rough old days, a worthy son of such a sire.

In 1885, when the writer was up the Fly and Strickland rivers, C.H.H , junior, accompanied his father on a gold-prospecting expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria; and was afterwards with that famous Jardine (the first man to take cattle to the extreme North of Queensland) at romantically terrible and blood-stained Somerset.

The elder Hartmann made a second visit to New Guinea. There was no “Papua” then —a stupid, meaningless, un-historic name, apparently invented by Forrest, the old-time explorer (not “Sir John,” of course), out of his inner conscienceness! C.H.H. was the first to take “domesticated” bees, cats, and dogs to the new land. He contracted there; and died upon his return, at Brisbane, at the early age of 53.

Professor Denton, the well-known American geologist and anthropologist, accompanied him on this last trip.