24 
NEW aUINEA. 
the Government Eeport of the Expedition. Those 
ethnologists who have been actively employed abroad 
in collecting materials, are veiy apt to adopt some 
particular race, with which they happen to be best 
acqnaintcd, as a standard with which to compare all others 
that they meet with j and I feel that my long and inti- 
mate acquaintance with the aboriginal Australians has not 
left me altogether free from a simikr infJuence. I shall, 
therefore^ in the course of this work, insert the descrip- 
tions of inteUigent travellers whose authenticity can be 
depended upon in preference to my own observations, 
whenever the personal characteristics of the native tribes 
are under review ; as it fortunately happens that I have 
ahundant materials at my disposal which will be as new 
to the English reader as my own contributions could be. 
. This strait was revisited in 1835 by Lieutenant Kool, 
with two schooners under his command^ who was the first 
to pass through it, lie named it the Prinses Marianne 
Strait, after a member of the Royal Family of the Nether- 
lands ; but as it had long been known by the name con- 
ferred upon it by Lieutenant Kolff, the first discoverer, 
that of Dourga (the name of his vessel), the latter has 
been generally retained in the charts of these parts. An 
abstract of Lieutenant Koors report is given by Dr. 
Miiller, and as it contains some important infoimation 
cpnccrning the natives, who were found to be in possession 
of numbers of canoes, it will be necessary to extract it in 
order to give all the information extant concerning the 
south-weatern tribes of New Guinea. No record exists 
of the strait having been visited by an European vessel 
since the voyage of Lieutenant Kool, 
