"Doc" Vernon

'T'HE man who gave constant attention 1 to Jack Hides and the'late David Lyall when they returned to civilisation at Daru recently, after their hazardous gold-seeking expedition into the interior of Papua, was Dr. G. H. Vernon, M.C., F.R.G.S.A., one of the best-loved charac ters of the Coral Sea (wrote lon Idriess in a recent issue of the Sydney Mai').

The war not holding enough ad venture for him, he accepted the job of Government Medical Officer at Thursday Island, where the colourful life of the famed pearling port occupied him for 10 years, said Mr. Idriess. As a break in

the monotony, he tramped through the wilds of Dutch New Guinea, which is the wildest, most interesting, dangerous, and unexplored area remaining on the globe.

As a lone white man with a few dare devil carriers, he tramped across the great mountain chain, so noted for its upheavals and enormous landslides, at the head of the Fly, and carried on down through the least known areas of Papua.

His long, somewhat gaunt figure in khaki shorts, with limbs brown as ber ries, was familiar to every man of the pearling fleets and to every sea nomad of the Coral Sea, as he strode down the little main street of Thursday Island backwards and forwards to the hospital at Vivien Point. His long, keen face with the big nose and somewhat dreamy eyes, has gazed sympathetically upon many a sufferer, white and brown, yellow and black, and of every shade in between.

But the wanderlust continually claimed him. Again and again he embarked on some crazy cutter bound on a voyage— goodness knows where. Again and again, he would return with the light of new places shining from his eyes, new people on mountain peaks, strange villages hid in the depths of the jungle, “swamp rats” that disappear like a shadow at the sound of man, new islands and queer ships, and steam clouds from volcanoes he had seen. Rejuvenated with a wonder ful energy, he would chain himself a slave to work again—until the wander lust called once more.

At last, what all Thursday Island had expected, but hoped would not happen, occurred. The old “Doc” resigned, and sailed to Daru (Western Papua) to start

Dr. G. H. Vernon (right) resting with a colleague. Dr. W. M. Bettington, just after having performed a serious operation at the Thursday Island hospital when he was Govern ment Medical Officer at T.I. some years ago.

a plantation and doctor the natives from a base much nearer the great dark is land continent that was always irresis tibly calling him. Daru, a lonely island within a few miles of Papua’s shores, is head-quarters of the Western Division.

From there “Doc” Vernon could more easily make his trips to inland Papua, and particularly the Gulf area, where are the mouths of mighty rivers that lead far up through walls of jungle to mar velous swamps in which reside strange people, and floating islands, and count less millions of wild fowl.

I guessed that Daru could not hold him for long. In the heart of the primeval jungle on the great Oriomo he will set to work soon to carve a new home. When he has learned all he can of the tribes men there, when he has felled a few mighty trees qnd built a house and made a garden spring up in the wilderness, then the wanderlust will call again, the vast breadth of the jungle, and the lure of distant peaks will take him further in still, always further in.

I often think of the “Doc” away back there. I can see his tall form tramping through the jungle, his dreaming eyes alight as they pierce the gloom, while that nose of his points ever forward to far, far away, where the great mountain peaks are lost in the clouds that come down from the sky.

It is men like Dr. Vernon who have made the British Empire the mightiest Power on earth.