WEST COAST. 
55 
and the Moluccas, during several centuries. This part of tbe 
coast was scarcely known to Europeans until within the 
last twenty-five years, for although some of the more 
prominent points had been laid down by passing navi- 
gators, no record exists of an actual visit to the coast 
until 1826, when Lieutenant Kolff touched at Lakahya, 
an islet near the head of the bight which separates the 
peninsulas to the south : but meeting with a hostile recep- 
tion, he left without ascertaining any important particulars 
concerning the inhabitants.* The Expedition of 1828 
was more successful, for when the vessels had advanced 
about a hundi-ed miles to the westward of the Outanat.ft 
Eiver, they were \isited by several small Papuan prahus j 
the crews of which came alongside the ships with great 
confidence, and conducted them to a snug cove in an 
island near the main land. On the shores of the cove was 
found a httle Papuan paradise, consisting of a valle)' over- 
grown with cocoa-nut-trees, under the shade of which was 
a neat little house, constructed after the Malayan fashion, 
that had once been the residence of the Ceramese priest 
who had converted the neighbouiing population to Mo- 
hammedanism. The settlement, which it was the chief 
object of the Dutch Expedition to form, was at length 
eetabhshed on the shores of a deep inlet of the main-laud, 
distant a few miles from this cove. The swampy nature 
of the land on which the fortified village was erected, and 
the oppressive nature of the atmosphere, owing to the 
inlet being impervious to the sea-breeze, seem to have 
foreboded the fate of the Dutch settlement even before the 
* Kolff, " Yojage of the * Dourga,' " chap. li. 
