June 27, 1859.] VOYAGE TO NEW GUINEA. 359 



rain or drizzle. When these were absent there was often a dull 

 haziness in the air, very different from onr usual notions of the sun- 

 shine of the tropics. The last month of his stay was nominally in 

 the dry season, but the rain-fall was in reality increased. The winds 

 also were abnormal. According to theory, he would have gone to 

 the island in the west monsoon and returned in the east ; but, each 

 way, the winds were contrary, and interspersed with dead calms. 

 Dorey is not a good station for starting on excursions into the 

 interior. It is also very unhealthy : Mr. Wallace and his servants 

 suffered constantly from fever and dysentery, and one of them died. 

 The Dutch Government has taken possession of New Guinea up to 

 141° E. long, from Greenwich. An active and exclusive trade is 

 carried on between that coast and the Moluccas, under their flag. 

 The beautiful series of maps of the Dutch possessions in the East, by 

 Baron Melville von Carnbee, are particularly remarked by Mr. 

 Wallace. A Dutch steamer was surveying the coast of New Guinea 

 while Mr. Wallace was there, in search of a good place for a settle- 

 ment. He understood that Dorey would, probably, be preferred on 

 account of its harbour and naval position, though in other respects 

 unsuitable. 



Mr. J. Crawfurd, f.r.g.s. — I have never visited the island of New 

 Guinea, but I have paid much attention to the subject, and ought to know 

 something about it. It is a monster island, and, although beyond doubt God 

 created nothing in vain, it appears to our narrow view that New Guinea was 

 created for no earthly good purpose. It is nearly twice the size of the United 

 Kingdom, is universally covered with forest, and inhabited throughout by a 

 peculiar negro race — a race which commences at that island and extends all 

 the way to New Caledonia and thence up to the Fiji Group, where it ceases. 

 This race strongly resembles the African negro, but still it is not the African 

 negro : it differs very materially from it. It has the general African features, 

 but the hair, especially in its texture, differs in a very singular manner. In- 

 stead of being woolly, like the head of the ordinary African, it grows in tufts so 

 long that it stretches out to an enormous extent — two or three feet right across 

 — a circumstance which has obtained for the Papuans the name of " mop-headed 

 Indians." Everywhere this race is intellectually inferior to the hrown-com- 

 plexioned people, as I am afraid it must be said of the negroes of Africa, that they 

 are inferior to all the fairer people in their neighbourhood, even those on the 

 continent of Africa itself. A remarkable example of this inferiority is given in 

 Dorey Harbour and a considerable part of the coast in its neighbourhood. The 

 people are subject to the government of a very small island, a mere rock in the 

 sea — the island of Temate, containing a comparatively active and industrious 

 population of the Malay race, who, in consequence, have been put in early 

 possession of some wealth and power, and been enabled to conquer and 

 hold in subjection a considerable portion of the population of New Guinea. 

 The inhabitants of New Guinea are in a very low social condition, in- 

 ferior, indeed, to that of any other people that I know of, except perhaps 

 the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. New Guinea produces some very 

 remarkable objects. It produces the true aromatic nutmeg, some very 

 singular birds, and, among these, the Birds of Paradise, which are peculiar 



