Dutch Mountaineers' Feat in New Guinea
p. 21 · Read in the full issue
after the return of the rescue machine.
Dutch Mountaineers’
Feat In New Guinea
A little Dutch expedition on the remotest fringes of Holland’s great Colonial Empire, with an area 56 times that of the Netherlands (730,000 square miles against 13,214) and a population between six and seven times as great (53 millions compared with 8 millions) has just achieved a remarkable feat.
Led by Dr. A. H. Colijn, son of the Prime Minister (who had himself a distinguished career in Sumatra and elsewhere in the Indies), it has just climbed Mt. Carstens in the Snow Mountains of Dutch New Guinea.
Mt. Carstens is 16,400 feet high and takes its name from Carstens-Zoon, the Dutch navigator who was the first of Europeans, as far as we know, to see these mountains.
An English expedition under Dr. Wollaston tried to climb the range in 1912 and made friends with the Tapiro pigmies, who live on the southern slope. The attempt on the peak failed.
Dr. Colijn had the advantage of the knowledge gained by an air reconnaissance. It was, however, a fine feat, and the climb was made by men from a