DOITROA STRAIT. 
9 
The names by which the iisland is known to Europeans 
and Asiatics, New Guinea and Taima Papua, both dis- 
tinctly refer to the leading peculiarity of the race by 
which the coasts are iuhabited. The interior is still a 
terra incognita, but as a large proportion of the slaves 
who are ex^)orted to the Moluccas have been obtained 
by stealth or barter from the villages of the interior, and 
these are invariably pure Papuans in general character- 
istics, there is at present no reasonable prospect of any 
other race being found there. This point, however, so 
deeply interesting to the student of ethnography, must 
remain an open question until some traveller has pene- 
trated the interior, an enterprise which, in the ordinary 
course of events^ must be attempted before many years 
elapse, * 
The western peninsula of New Guinea consists of 
masses of elevated land, penetmted by deep salt-water 
inlets, and affording evidence of having been intensely 
disturbed by recent volcanic action. The most striking 
geographical feature of the great eastern peninsula con- 
sists in a back-bone of lofty mountains, which apparently 
extends throughout its length. Three remarkable table- 
topped mountains near the centre of the island, in the 
King of Holland, in the year 1828. As the commanders of Her 
Majesty's ships employed in the surveyijig service are said to have 
general instructions not to interfere with coasts claimed by foreign 
powers, miless the interests of navigation absolutely require it, this 
in some degree accounts for the fact that so lat^ a space of coast, 
witliia 600 miles of an European settlement that has been eslab- 
Hshed more than three centnnes^ remains still nnkiiown to civilized 
nations. 
B 3 
