49$ 



NEW OUIIfEA, 



[chap, xxxit. 



which an elevated point juts out, and, \vit!i two or three 

 small islaris, forms a sheltered anchorage. The only vessel 

 it contained when we arrived was a Dutch brig, laden with 

 coals for the use of a war-steamer, which was expected 

 daily, on an exploring expedition along the coasts of New 

 Guinea, for tlie purpose of fixing on a locality ibr a colony. 

 In the evening we paid it a visit, and landed at the village 

 of Dorey, to look out for a place where I could build my 

 house. Mr. Otto also made an'angemcnt"? for me with 

 some of the native chiefs, to send men to cut wood, 

 rattans, and bamboo the next day. 



The villages of Mf%nsinam and Dorey presented some 

 features quite new to me. The houses all stand com- 

 pletely in the water, and are reached by long rude 

 bridges. They are very low, with the roof shaped like 

 a large boat, bottom upwards. The posts which support 

 the houses, bridges, and platforms are email crooked 

 sticks, placed without any regularity, and looking as if 

 they were tumbling down. The floors are also formed of 

 sticks, equally iiTegular, and so loose and far apart that 

 I found it almost impossible to walK on them. The walls 

 consist of bits of boards, old boats, rotten mats, attaips, 

 and palui-leaves, stuck in anyhow here and there, and 

 having altogether the most wretched and dilnpidated 

 appearance it is possible to conceive. Under the eaves 

 of many of the houses hang human skulls, the trophies of 

 their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who 

 often come to attack them. A large boat-shaped council- 

 house is supported on larger posts, each of which is grossly 

 carv-ed to represent a naked male or female human figure, 

 and other carvings still more revolting are placed upon 

 the platform before the entrance. The view of an ancient 

 lake- dweller's village, given as the frontispiece of Sir 

 Charles LyeU's "Antiquity of Man," is chiefly founded on 

 a sketch of this very village of Dorey ; but the extreme 

 regularity of the structures there depicted has no place 

 in the original, any more than it probably had in the 

 actual lake-v ill ages. 



The people who inhabit these miserable huts are very 

 similar to the and Am islanders, and many of them 

 are very handsome, being tall and well-made, with weU- 



