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223 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



" and the like unnatural monsters, while the birds too 

 " are as wild and shy as the men." Further to the East 

 he found the people " cunning and suspicious, and no 

 " stratagem on our part availed to draw them near 

 " enough to us to enable us to catch one or two with 

 " nooses which we had prepared for the purpose." 

 Suspicion of the unknown is in the nature of savage 

 people, and when we read that " in order to frighten 

 " them the corporal fired a musket, which hit them 

 " both, so that they died on the spot," we no longer 

 wonder that they appeared to Jan Carstensz to be 

 " evil-natured and malignant." But times have changed 

 and the Dutch navigator of to-day is not less humane 

 than any other. 



After coming out of the Marianne Straits we noticed 

 a change in the appearance of the land ; the smoke of 

 villages appeared at frequent intervals and the shore was 

 seen to be fringed by a continuous belt of coco-palms 

 in place of the mangrove to which we had become 

 accustomed. In a few hours from the Marianne Straits 

 we came to the mouth of the Merau River and after 

 steaming up it for about four miles we dropped anchor 

 opposite the Dutch station of Merauke, where we left 

 the ship and went ashore. 



The Dutch people have an inborn preference for low- 

 lying land on which to place their stations, but not the 

 most enthusiastic fenman would have voluntarily chosen 

 Merauke as a place for a settlement. The reason of its 

 existence is a political one. Formerly the natives of the 

 district, the Tugeri, a very fierce and warlike people, 

 used to have the habit of making raids to the Eastward 



