84 THE PAPUANS: COMPARATIVE NOTES, ETC., 
I may here mention, incidentally, that a boy who was taken 
home from New Britain by Dr. Finsch, and introduced by him 
to the leading German ethnologists and anthropologists, was at 
once put down as an African! This will give you an idea of 
the riddle which scientists have to solve before the origin of the 
Papuan race can be traced. 
Signor D’Albertis’ work on New Guinea bristles with notices 
of the natives at the different spots visited by him during his 
several expeditions. It would be impossible in this paper to 
quote all these, but a few collated from the mass will suffice to 
give an idea of his theories touching the Papuans as a race. 
In the forest on the coast of Emberbaki, he met a family of 
Alfuros. These people differ very widely from the Alfuros of 
Gilolo, described by Wallace. They were hunting, and are 
described as follows :—‘‘ There were two men, two women, and 
several children. They showed no fear of me, and I went quite 
near tothem. . . . The men were tall, and their skins very 
black; the women, whose skins were perhaps still blacker, had 
engaging faces; they were, I maysay, even pretty, notwithstanding 
their blacker colour. Their features were by no means defec- 
tive. They had not long, but, on the contrary, rather round 
faces. They appeared stout, and well fed, and I observed that 
their breasts were beautifully shaped and rounded. Their eyes 
were remarkably fine . . . Their hair was curly and 
unkempt. . . They are of a type sufficiently resembling that 
of the people of Dorey to be recognised as akin to the latter.” 
“ 2At Ramoi, a little village on the coast of New Guinea, a 
few miles from the sea, there is a small population which may 
be considered of almost pure blood. These people are very 
dark in colour, of low stature, with woolly hair, small eyes, and 
flattened noses. They seemed to me the poorest people im the 
1 New Guinea, Vol. 1, p. 66.” 
2New Guinea, by L. M. D‘Albertis, 1881; Vol. 1 pp. 215-16. 
