was since the Germans abdicated. There is an area 152 of roughly three hundred and fifty square miles which no white man has ever entered, and about which nothing at all is known. The large volcano of Bougainville, 11000 feet high, has never been ascended, the interior of the island has not yet even been superficially surveyed, and aside from the knowledge that in the unknown area smoke has occasionally been seen from the distant mountain ridges, no information is available. Mr. Samson, whom we met in Kieta while he was recovering from a spear wound he received when he was ambushed in one of the Kanaka villages, is one of the two government patrol officers assigned to the southern district of Bougainville. It is through the efforts of him and his few brother officers that the govern- gment hopes to overcome slowly the unopened territory. It will by the rate they are going and the methods they are using take another fifty years to accomplish. The government patrol officers, of which there are three on the whole island, make extended journeys in company with their police boys. Their equipment and supplies must be carried by natives of the successive villages and surrendered by stages to their successors. In the village that is under government control there is one government agent who acts as chief and one government interpreter. Both are local natives. During the course of his visit to a village the patrol officer consults his agent through the medium of the interpreter, or tul tul, inspects the gardens which