The Man Who Scooped the Newspapers

He Saw the Promised Land-

The Man Who Scooped the Newspapers And Stole Administration Thunder

THE man who beat the gun was Mr. John Zehnder, 28, a geologist with the Australasian petroleum Company, who entered the valley in May while on a four months patrol of the Tari and Strickland area. Zehnder started off with another geologist, a field assistant, a large party of native police and carriers, and accompanied by Administration Assistant District Officer Clancy. During the trip, Zehnder, a handful of native police and carriers, went off to have a look at the Muller Range area and later returned to the main party after having stumbled into the hidden valley, which Zehnder revealed the natives named Lavina.

This was just before the combined DCA and District Services survey flew into the valley, and reported itc pvistpnpp [ Following the announcement by the heads of these two Departments, (Australian and other overseas news papers manifested extraordinary in fterest. Most of them assumed that there were 100,000 people in one Valley—the one they named Shangri- La. This mistake was excusable as the official hand-out on the survey was not clear on this point.

It seems now that this one valley ? has a population of about 3,000; the other 97,000 people are esti mated to be in the whole area sur veyed by the aerial party in June. [ After the official announcement in June, PIM Sydney office was con tacted by the representative of a London newspaper who wanted to •know how he could charter a plane to fly into the valley.

Other requests evidently were bnade to Administration head quarters in Port Moresby; another London newspaper is reported to have offered to finance an expedi tion to the valley—with exclusive etory rights for the newspaper. The Administration has declined pall offers. A spokesman said in July that no one would accompany the first patrol, which would be a routine DDS affair, probably towards the -end of the year.

Meanwhile Zehnder seemed un impressed by the furore over the valley or by the valley itself. Although one Sydney newspaper reported that he saw natives of 6-ft. 8-in. tall :<and that each male adult had seven wives) he said that the natives were about average size for the Tari area, or perhaps a little taller —at least a foot shorter than reported.

He saw very few women, and these appeared similar to others in the area. The people in the valley

While the world’s newspapers were making a hullaballoo about New Guinea’s hidden valley of “Shangri-La” (first reported after an aerial survey in June) and while the District Services Department in Moresby was beating off those same newspapers who now wanted to accompany the first official ground patrol into it, a man returned to Moresby and announced that he had entered the valley weeks before.

had contact with those outside, and they had also heard of white men, although they had never seen any.

That is not unusual in NG where hundreds of thousands in remote villages have had no personal con tact with Europeans.

A few days after Mr. Zehnder returned to Moresby the Adminis trator made a statement in which he inferred that the whole APC party was in the area only by arrangement with the Administra tion and that no one had seen fit to mention that the party was escorted by a District Services officer and native police.

This is, of course, the case, and Mr. Zehnder never suggested other wise. Like a thousand other men

Mr. John Zehnder. —Photo by Papuan Prints. before him in New Guinea, he broke new country. He was not to know that that particular valley was to be selected by the newspapers of the world for a sensation. Now, so far as these newspapers are con cerned, he is the first man to enter Shangri-La—and no one can change that!