by Caroline Mytinger (Author)
In the 1920's, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands were among the world's last wild places. Largely unmapped and inhabited by headhunters and cannibals, these jungle islands of the Coral Sea captured the popular imagination as examples of the unknown. Many adventurers went to these remote islands, the least likely of whom were two young American women, Caroline Mytinger and Margaret Warner who set out from San Francisco in 1926 armed with little more than art supplies and a ukelele, used by Margaret to entertain sitters while Caroline painted their portraits. Mytinger and Warner went chasing adventure in the name of science, something rarely done by women at the time, and they did it in the face of universal dissapproval and even terror on the part of their families, who didn't expect them to come back alive. Not only that, but they had virtually no money and no scientific support or backing. But live they did, and they brought back beautiful paintings and the fascinating stories contained in this fine book.