256 yEJF GUIXEA. [chap. 



Batanta, we shot four females and a young male. The full-plumaged 

 male appears almost always to keep separate from the females, and 

 we did not meet with a single one. Our spare time was fully oc- 

 cupied in makmg a sketch survey of the bay. Xear its southern 

 shore is a small islet, where a few Papuans had established them- 

 selves in a couple of little huts, which bore no resemblance whatever 

 to the large, turtle-backed structures characteristic of the dwellers on 

 the mainland and in Jobi Island. These men, who were evidently of 

 unmixed blood, averaged from five feet seven to five feet nine inches 

 in height, and were well built about the chest. The hair, though 

 worn in the usual mop, was perhaps hardly as full as that of the 

 natives farther east. These huge crisp mops, which in their fullest 

 development are as large as a guardsman's bearskin, and not unlike 

 it, are alone sufficient to prove racially the distinctness of the 

 Papuan. The hair is curiously stiff and wire-like, so much so 

 that if the hand be laid on one of these compact and elaborately- 

 tended coiffures, it meets with almost as much resistance as it 

 would if pressed against a short-clipped European beard. The 

 nose would be prominent if Xatiu^e allowed it, but, though it is in 

 no way flattened, the tip is rapidly compressed towards the face, 

 and the alee nasi, being attached at a higher level than in the 

 European, leave exposed a large surface of the septum, and the 

 result is a certam Mephistophelian expression which is somewhat 

 unpleasant. The legs, forearm, and chest are partially covered with 

 short crisp hair, but the beard and moustache are scanty. One 

 man in Marchesa Bay had a pair of pincers and plucked out any 

 hair that displeased him, being evidently well acquainted with the 

 looking-glass, but one of the sailors happening to show a mirror to 

 a native on the south coast, the man gave a yell of terror which 

 showed that it was his first experience of the article. None of the 

 Batanta natives had the nose bored, but the ears were pierced and 

 ornamented with small earrings of brass wire. The dress was a 

 mere T-bandage of Malay cloth, the end passed once again round 

 the body and left dangling in front or at the side. Of that of the 



