Expeditions

While some explorers were just back with tales of their summer adventuring, others last week were planning or embarking on new expeditions. Some tales and plans: Antarctic Cruise. Five months ago, owners of the Stella Polaris, a sturdy 6,000-ton steamer, announced in London that Lieut.-Commander J. R. Stenhouse would take a group of tourists to Antarctica. Last fortnight, a pleasant-faced woman engaged passage for the cruise. She was Emily Dorman Lady Shackleton, the lady whom the late gallant Sir Ernest Shackleton left behind him for the third and last time, when he embarked on the Antarctic trip that killed him nine years ago. She wanted to see the white frozen country where his body lies. But the Stella Polaris will not put in at South Georgia where he is buried beneath a cairn of cold stones.

Twenty-six years ago, Ernest Shackleton, 30 and Irish, was married in London to Miss Emily Mary Dorman. They had been engaged for five years. Ernest, who had always loved sea ways, and had come to know them through years in the mercantile marine service, had just returned from Antarctica with Scott Antarctic Expedition of 1901. The couple went to live in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Mrs. Shackleton knew many important people. Among her friends was the Earl of Rosebery, Queen Victoria's famed Prime Minister (1894-95). Four years after the marriage, Explorer Shackleton turned again toward the South Pole. This time he was commanding officer. When he returned the next year after having been within 97 miles of the pole, England made a knight of him. Five years later, he set out again. Terrific ice packs wrecked his ship. He and his men camped on an ice floe for six months, were finally rescued by a Chilean trawler. In 1921, English bells were rung as Sir Ernest sailed away on another white voyage, his last. The following year on Jan. 5, he died of a, heart attack off South Georgia Island, 2,800 mi. northeast of Explorer Byrd's later Little America. When Lady Shackleton heard of his death, she insisted that his body be buried in the country he loved to explore.

New Islands. Soviet professors aboard the icebreaker Sedov discovered two new Arctic islands near the Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia. They named them Wise and Kameniev Islands after two expedition members. They suspected their finds were part of a large archipelago. Some of the party went ashore on Fridtjof Nansen Land for a cold year's stay to operate the world's most northerly radio station.

New Tribe. On horseback, Desmond Holdridge, 24, explorer for the Brooklyn Museum, rode for 30 days from the mouth of the Amazon River to Rio Brasco in the jungle country of Brazil, close to the Venezulean border. With him went a native horse thief, the only guide brave enough to accompany him. In the heart of the jungle he found the Pishauko tribe, known to white men by name only. Originally a plains people, the Pishauko fled into the jungle to escape becoming slaves to Spanish conquerors. The natives worship before a symbol which looks like a crucifix, chant services before hunting. Tribal medicine men prescribe self torture as a cure for disease, advise a poultice of live ants as a disease prevention. One chief gave Explorer Holdridge some vegetables from his garden. He explained that the vegetables were good because recently he had cast out all evil spells from his garden by killing his brother-in-law, a voodoo priest. Explorer Holdridge also saw a new mountain range, two uncharted rivers, a waterfall 260 ft. high.

Lost Tribe. With much-publicized Capt. Robert Abram ("Bob") Bartlett in command, the schooner Effle Morrisey picked her way carefully along the northeastern coast of Greenland between ice floes as large as Manhattan Island. She carried Harry Whitney, Philadelphia financier-naturalist,* and Junius Bird, archeologist. Mr. Bird had gone on the cold 15,000-mi. trip because he had a mystery he wanted to solve. In 1823, the British explorer, Capt. D. C. Clavering had visited a highly civilized Eskimo settlement along the eastern coast. Since Clavering, no explorer had been able to find the town again. Captain Bartlett landed his scientists near the reported location. Naturalist Whitney helped Archeologist Bird scout the country and they found half an answer to the 100-year-old mystery: a group of deserted stone houses built into pits in the ground. In the houses were tools, trinkets and children's toys. They also found many burial cairns. But nothing was discovered which revealed the reason for the colony's disappearance. The oldest Eskimo living nearby could not remember having seen or heard of the lost tribe. Besides excavating, Archeologist Bird helped Naturalist Whitney shoot walrus for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, capture two musk oxen for Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter, vice president of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.

"Talkie-talkie." To find furnishings for the new African Hall soon to be opened at the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, Dr. Morton C. Kahn led an expedition into South America. Almost 200 years ago, African slaves in Dutch Guiana revolted, went into the bush to establish an Africo-South American civilization. Today the tribes live in thatched huts, cut designs into their flesh. Cowrie shells from the East Indies are used to adorn amulets as in Africa. The tribes speak "talkie-talkie," a mixture of Dutch, English, Portuguese, French and African. The Boni tribe in French Guiana has fallen under the influence of missionaries more than the Dutch tribes. Many of them wear trousers. Dr. Kahn brought back 300 specimens of woodcarving for the African Hall.

Tame and Yellow. Returning from his third season in the Orinoco Valley, Dr. Herbert Spencer Dickey, staff member of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, described 50 more previously unexplored miles of the Orinoco River. He had stories to tell of unusually small ducks, jet black parrots, red morning glories as big as saucers. Dr. Dickey called upon the Guaharibos Indians who, someone had told him, were white and mean. Instead he found them yellow and sweet-tempered. They wear no clothes, live in the Stone Age manner. Dr. Dickey had taken harmonicas with him for gifts, discovered they needed agricultural implements more. While the rest of the party went farther up the river, Mrs. Dickey, who accompanies her husband, stayed on shore with the Guaharibos. The tribe has an unusually high infant mortality rate. Mrs. Dickey said the women wailed all night for their dear children, while the men slept. She liked the Guaharibos men, described them as sensitive, friendly. Said she: "I never saw finer instincts in any white men than in those savages."

Head-Hunters. Dr. Ralph Franklin Barton, school teacher, lived in the Philippine Islands for eight years, had Ifugao headhunters for neighbors. He watched carefully to see how they lived, wrote a book about them./- Only a few of the most accomplished warriors are allowed to go on a head-hunt. As soon as a lucky group is chosen, the rest of the tribe dances, prays to hundreds of gods to send them many heads. When the warriors arrive in enemy country they construct a small hut for ambush. The first victim to appear has a spear thrown at him. Ifugao etiquet demands that the one who throws the fatal spear gets the head. Other warriors are supposed to stand by and watch while the killer dances over the fallen body, slashes the neck with his long knife, wets his fingers in the spurting blood and tastes it. Actually headhunters often become too enthusiastic, turn the ceremony into a free-for-all. Head-taking, like scalping among American Indians, adds war-glory to the individual warrior. In addition, heads bring soul-stuff into the tribe, which benefits everyone by increasing crops, making women and cattle more prolific, driving away pestilence.

*Not to be confused with the late Henry Payne Whitney of Long Island and Manhattan, financier-sportsman (TIME, Nov. 3).

/-THE HALFWAY SUN -- Brewer & Warren ($5).

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