8 
KEW GUINEA, 
CHAPTER II. 
NEW GUINEA. SOUTH COAST, 
PAPUATJ CHAHACTZR OF THE WKW GVlNHA. TRIBES — OEOGRAPHICAL 
SKETCH or THE ISLAKD — VISITS OF EARLY TOYAOERS — DUTCH BX- 
FEBITTON OY 1S2S INTERVIEW WITH NATIVES OF DOI?RGA STRAtT 
HOSTItP, ENCOUNTER CHARACTERISTIC 3 OF THl D0t5RGA TRIBE^ — 
WEAPONS AKD ORNAMENT*— AOILITV IN CLIMBING TREES— MAN- 
GROVE THICKETS HABITATIONS PAPUANS AND AUSTRALIANS — 
EXPEDITION or LIEUTENANT KOOL TO DOURGA STRAIT IN 1835— 
JXTERVtEW WITH A LARGE TRIBR 07 FREDERIC S-HBNBY ISLAKD. 
Nkw Guinea, the great seat of the Papuan race, is 
1,400 miles in extreme lengthy or nearly double tliat of 
Borneo; but its superficial area is probably less tban 
that of the latter island (200,000 square geographical 
miles), as there is every reason to believe that the aouth 
coast of New Guinea, immediately opposite to the Gulf of 
Carpentaria in Australia, forms a deep indentation similar 
to the Great Bay on tbe north coast, there being a space 
of two degrees and a half of longitude in which the land 
has not yet been seen.* 
* Of this imexplored space, 118 miles, four-fiftliB of the 
whole, were t^km possession of by proclamation, in the Eamc of the 
