DOtTRGA STRAIT. 
11 
influences in a certain degree, probably from its lying 
near the supposed course of the great Malayu-Polynesian 
migration. But the south and soiith-wcst coasts have been 
very rarely intruded on by \isitors, Euro])ean or Asiatic. 
The early Dutch navigatoi-s, who followed the south-west 
coast on their way to explore the Great South Land, have 
left traces of their intercourse, which appears never to 
have been friendly, in the names they have given to the 
two principal rivers of the south-west coast, *'Moor- 
deeaar," or murderer, and " Doodslaagcr/^ or slaughterer j 
and the experiences of Captain Cook, who touched on 
this co^t in the 'Endeavour,' were only a little less unfa- 
vourable. Indeed, no record exists of friendly intercoui^se 
having been held by Europeans with natives of the south 
and south-west coasts until the year 1828, when the 
Dutch government, during one of those spurts of 
colonial activity which seem to attack western nations 
periodically, dispatched a large corvette, the* Triton/ to 
this part of the coast, with a party of naturalists and 
draughtsmen to make observations, and a body of troops 
to form the garrison of a settlement. The strait which 
separates the south-west extreme of New Guinea from the 
main land was the first spot visited, and as the secluded 
tribe they met with on the shores of the strait had pro- 
bably never before held intercourse with a strange people, 
I propose making some extracts from a narrative of the 
expedition by Lieutenant Modera,* one of those intelli- 
* "Yerliaal van cenc Reize iiaar de Zuid-wcst Kust thu 
Niew-Giuneft, door J. Modem, Lieutenant ter Zee," Haarlem, 
183a 
