Eastern & Western Highlands Took off from Goroka at 9:25 on Qantas DC 3 on government "wilk run" charter; Captain Gus Swinbourne, 1st Officer Kingsley Roberts, Purser Peter Snelling. Very cloudy weather. Swinbourne kindly diverted well off his course to let us see the approaches to Mt. Wilhelm. Clouds hid most of the great mountain, but we had a good view of Keglsugl air strip and about 1000 feet of the slopes above it. Good forest and a big stream just above the air strip. An excellent locality for ourwork. Through a partial break in the clouds as we flew past the mountain to the south I glimpsed a great rockface, and beside it an extraordinary sharp pinnacle. We were flying at 11,100 feet. Landed at Minj in the main Wahgi Valley at 10 o'clock; altitude 5500 feet. Craig Symons, ADO and formerly of Samarai, met us and took us to his house while our plane did a shuttle trip to Mt. Hagen with cargo. At Minj to meet us was Fred Shaw Mayer, former collector of birds and mammals for the British Museum and London Zoo and for some years now in charge of the Hallstrom Wildlife Station at Nondugl, across the Wahgi Valley (north side) and about 12 miles by jeep road from Minj. Much shop talk with Fred, who, starting on the Vogelkop in 1928, made 20 collecting trips into New Guinea and collected many new mammals. Minj a flourishing sub-district station where most of the numerous natives seen wore the old string sporran and Cordyline backside cover of the Highlands, plus shell ornaments. Wet weather has closed at the Western Highlands today except Minj and Mt. Hagen. It is proposed to make Minj the central airstrip for the district and parts to the west and south, a function now centered at Mt. Hagen. Gave Mrs. Symons a selection of choice flowers/ and vegetable seeds which I bought as gifts at the New York Flower Show just before we left the U.S. Most European garden plants do well on the Highlands. We left Minj with a carton of lettuce, cabbage, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, and string beans. Left Minj for Mt. Hagen at 12:15 and landed 12:28. Had as passengers 10 pay-off natives each adorned with a single, vibarting cockatoo feather in his hair; some of them very sick before we set down at Hagen. Air rather rough, and not much to be seen for white clouds and dark thunderheads. Mt. Hagen is district headquarters for the Western Highlands i/c DC Ian Skinner, with whom we had our Qantas box lunch, well disguised and added to by Mrs. Skinner. About 50 whites here. A Seventh Day Adventist leper hospital about 7 miles away; staffed by the mission and financed by the New Guinea Government which has put in £l0,000 this year; 450 patients; in charge of Dr. Yates, a sour, griping American from Montana. A Lutheran Mission in the neighborhood is in charge of a Canadian; leprosy is now called Hansen's Disease. At one time during our stay (during another shuttle trip back to Minj) five planes were on the strip, in- cluding three DC 3s, a Norseman and a small Cessna. Skinner does not seem particularly popular. Coffee planting is thriving in the district. An expected harvest this year of 600,000 pounds of passionfruit, grown entirely by natives. Passionfruit in over supply this year on the High- lands. The pulp is flown down to the coast and thence shipped by sea to Australia for flavoring drinks and icecream. Natives of thē Highlands in general are also planting a lot of coffee; native products expected to surpass the European plantation crop within a few years. One native last year was paid £l200 for his coffee crop.