BEITISH NEW GUINEA. 315 



amongst many of them. To this mixed race belong the Motus of Port-Moresby, 

 who manufacture and export vast quantities of earthenware, and whose language 

 has become the lingua franca of the traders along a large part of the seaboard. 

 Their complexion is relatively fair, not unlike that of the Tahitians, and in their 

 attitude, physiognomy, and usages they also recall the eastern Polynesians. Of 

 all the New Guinea peoples they practise tattooing to the greatest extent. The 

 designs, with which they cover a great part of the body, bear a surprising resem- 

 blance to Greek and Latin characters. At the sight of these fine torsos, which 

 seem clothed with inscriptions, one feels involuntarily tempted to decipher the 

 writing, as if it contained the personal history of the bearers. 



The Koyari, who occupy the first slopes of the mountains back of Port-Moresby, 

 have near their villages little dohos, or houses, perched on the tree tops, where they 

 take refuge in case of danger, and whence they hurl stones on their assailants. It 

 was perhaps these dobos that gave rise to the legend of certain Papuan peoples 

 living in the trees, and springing from branch to branch like monkeys. The 

 Koyari and the neighbouring Koitapu of kindred stock have a much darker com- 

 plexion than the Motus. 



The aborigines of the British territory must be included amongst those popula- 

 tions, who have developed jio distinct form of government, all the male adults 

 being practically equal. Doubtless each village has its so-called " chiefs," who 

 owe this title either to age or to personal valour in warfare, or else to their superior 

 skill and potency as magicians. But this moral ascendency gives them no authority 

 over the tribe, and the consequence is that the British Government is unable to 

 utilise them as officials in the way it would wish. All its efforts aim at giving 

 the tribes a monarchical constitution, by appointing some distinguished member of 

 the community to be henceforth a paid functionary, and at the same time the 

 representative of his fellow-tribesmen, and responsible for their conduct. The 

 general administration of British New Guinea has meantime been delegated by the 

 home Government to the Australian colony of Queensland, 



The German Possessions in New Guinea. 



The German territory, officially designated by the name of Kaiser Wilhelms- 

 land, is not administered as a state colony by officials from Berlin. Its manage- 

 ment is simply left in the hands of a trading company, which, under the protection 

 and control of the Government, endeavours to make money by laying out planta- 

 tions, establishing trading stations, and exporting local produce. Men-of-war visit 

 these waters to give the German traders the necessary prestige, and, when 

 required, to lend them active assistance. 



Numerous expeditions have revealed the form of the coastline in all its details, 

 but the old French, English, and Ptussian names of the prominent headlands and 

 other geographical features have been gradually replaced by German appellations. 

 Very little of the nomenclature given to this region by the first explorers now 

 remains on the maps, and the natives no longer salute strangers by the title of 



