CHAP. XL] DIVISIONS OF NEW GUINEA. 249 



doubt destined to be the site of plantations equal in value to those 

 of Java. The Arfak range which lines the western shore of 

 Geelvink Bay attains a height of about 10,000 feet, and the Charles 

 Louis mountains are the only instances in tropical Asia where the 

 limit of perpetual snow is reached. British New Guinea, the 

 southern division of the eastern half of the island, has also a high 

 range in the interior of the south-eastern peninsula — the Ow^en 

 Stanley mountains, but the rest of the country is for the most part 

 flat and unhealthy, and the coast is encumbered with coral-reefs. 

 Of the German territory little is at present known, except that a 

 vast stretch of mountain and table land exists at no great distance 

 from the sea. 



A glance at the map shows four large islands lying off the 

 north-west extremity of Dutch New Guinea — Waigiou, Batanta, 

 Salwatti, and Misol — all truly Papuan, as is evidenced by the 

 shallowness of the water separating them from the mainland, and 

 by the character of their fauna. These, together with a certain 

 portion of the adjacent northern coast, are known as the Bajah 

 aiivjjat,^ and are nominally under the jurisdiction of the Eajah of 

 Gebi — an island lying a little farther to the west. This potentate 

 holds his authority from the Sultan of Tidor, who in his turn is a 

 vassal of the Dutch, and it was chiefly in virtue of this fact that 

 the latter assumed the suzerainty of Western New Guinea, to which, 

 however, the voyages and explorations of Schouten, Vink, Joannes 

 Keijts, and a host of other navigators thoroughly entitle them. 



In the whole of the vast extent of country which thus forms 

 the eastern limit of the Netherlands India there is not a single 

 Dutch settlement of any kind. In 1828 a post was established at 

 Triton Bay, but the unhealthiness of the clunate and other reasons 

 caused its abandonment seven years later, and, though it is 

 occasionally visited, it has never since been permanently kept up. 



^ Tlie Rajah ampat, or four Rajahs, are those of Waigiou, Salwatti, and Lelinta 

 and Waigamma in the island of Misol, but the term has come to be applied to the 

 districts owning their authority. 



