AustLit

Author's Introduction: The Land of Dahori-it is a derisive term: the land of By and By; the land of Manana; the stronghold of postponement....But for me 'dahori' has another meaning which underlies and gives force and vigour to the idea of postponement; and for me New Guinea is truly the land of Tomorrow....So, my 'Land of Dahori', for me, if not for the purists, is the land of By and By, the land of the Day Before Yesterday and the land of the day After Tomorrow all in one....

I came first to New Guinea casually, by accident, covering for a group of Australian periodicals the story of a millionaire-philanthropist's introduction of sheep to the potentially rich pastures of the Central Highlands...The subsequent, total effect of New Guinea was to upset all my preconceived ideas of human development, and consequently to promote a rather restless search for truths to replace the conceptions I discarded. This book contains the results of that search, and the episodes and incidents which make up the sum of its contents are all based upon truth, so far as I have been able to establish it. They all represent a fairly accurate reporting of human experience, and where the experience was not my own, or not within the command of my own senses, I had it from the principal actor in his own words and I confirmed it independently.

The limitations of experience being what they are, a majority of the incidents would come into the second category. (pp.5-7).