BRITISH NEW GUINEA. 421 



enough to soe tlieir faces smeared with a dark pigment that 

 always tends fo increase the natural grotesqiieness of their 

 appearance. The women apparently endeavoured to vie 

 with their lords and masters in artistic designing. Not being 

 contented with the simple and easily varied form of besmear- 

 ing themselves with pigment, they sometimes have recourse 

 to the artifice of the tattooer. Their nakedness is covered 

 by very thick grass petticoats extending extravagantly from 

 waist to knee. Juvenile members of both sexes of the 

 community afiect the same form of dress as their elders do. 

 Their domestic animals are limited to the dingo and pig. 



An abominable practice, which will only be modified as 

 British influence increases, obtains amongst these people of 

 hunting the heads of their own kind, not merely in times of 

 tribal warfare nor at the dictation of feudal strife, although 

 the latter is by no means uncommon ; but the occupation is 

 a recognised one, and to all intents and purposes a legitimate 

 institution fostered from childhood, so that to those con- 

 cerned the hunting assumes the form of second nature ; and 

 no punishment is meted out to the perpetrators. The skulls 

 are used in dwellings for ornamental purposes, where they 

 are arrayed in conspicuous places according to their order of 

 merit ; in some villages the skulls are suspended over the 

 front parts of the houses. Tribal hostilities are common, 

 and it is not unusual to find neighbouring villages so un- 

 friendly with one another that the fear of being killed pre- 

 vents interchange of civilities. It may easily be understood 

 that the social condition of these people is one of uncon- 

 strained savagery, and that Christianity is entirely unknown. 

 Let us hope, however, that the powerful influence of the 

 Wesleyan missionaries, to whom this part of the possession 

 has been allotted, will bear good fruit, and that, instead of 

 reverberating the fiendish yells of the heathen warcry and 

 feast, the hills and valleys will henceforth re-echo the 

 melodies of Christian harmony. The civil law is adminis- 

 tered by a resident magistrate and a gold-warden, whose 

 headquarters are at Samarai, in the Louisiades. 



To the north of these groups lie the remote islands of 

 Trobriand, Murua, and Nada, occupying a position between 

 the parallels of 8° 25' to 9° 23' south latitude, and the 

 meridians of 150° 30' to 153° 40' east longitude. These 

 were visited and explored by Sir William MacGregor in 

 July, 1890, and subsequently the central group of Murua 

 was the scene of His Honour's operations, when its physica 



