The last three decades of the 19th century saw a sudden and indecorous effort by the major European powers to colonize the vast, almost unexplored interior of the African continent.

The agency's rather dry name notwithstanding, its workers here in Amazonas State are not deskbound bureaucrats, but modern-day "bandei rantes," descendants of the 16th-century pioneers who braved Brazil's vast and unexplored interior.

To reach them would mean either another boat journey around the island, or a land crossing through its unexplored interior.

The party was the second to cross the unexplored interior of Central Australia, 300 miles to the east of John McDouall Stuart's 1862 route.

The interior, hitherto unexplored was occupied by the tribes of the family Cariri - the PEGAS and PANATO.

Then she had accompanied Zouga to Africa, equal partners in the expedition to find their father Fuller Ballantyne, who had been missing in the unexplored interior for eight years.

The train's name honours Afghan camel drivers who arrived in Australia in the late 19th century to help find a way to reach the country's unexplored interior.

Thomas suspected that the species was already extinct on Jamaica, but that it or a similar rice rat could still be found in the unexplored interior of Cuba or Hispaniola.

He could hunt big game there, penetrate to the unexplored interior of the Amazon, search for the lost cities of the Incas.

The second story, "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee", which takes place in the 18th century, is an account of a hunting expedition into the then "unexplored" interior of South Africa.