WEST COAST. 61 
Eaja of Kilwari, among others, haying a wife born at the 
Papuan village of Atti-Attu The price given for a slave 
on the coast is usually two pieces of white calico, valued at 
from eight to ten Spanish dollars j — from sixty to seventy 
rupees (five to six pounds sterling) being obtained by the 
traders for them at Bali, and other places in that direc- 
tion/'* 
Mr, Modera gives some interesting details concerning 
the customs of the mountaineers, (Alfoeren of Berg' 
bewoners) in the neighbourhood of Triton^s Bay; but at 
tbe same time candidly states that the informatioQ 
obtained, as being derived from the chiefs of the coast 
tribes, was by no means satisfactory. Indeed the inhabi* 
tants of the coasts, especially if con'upted by j\Iohamme- 
danism, are interested in making the inland inhabitants 
appear in the worst possible light, partly with the view of 
deterring Europeans from holding intercourse with them, 
which might seriously impair their own influence, and 
partly to enhance the vake of their own Bemi-civilization 
in the estimation of their visitors. One important ethno- 
graphical fact was, however, ascertaiued by the officers of 
this Expedition ; namely, that the inhabitants of the 
interior, of whom they saw several specimens, did not 
differ in any essential particular from those of the coast. 
Until within the last few years, it was considered by 
ethnograjihers that the Alfoeren, Alfours, or Arafuras, 
were a distinct race of people, inhabiting the interior 
of New Guinea, Ccram, and all the larger islands in the 
south-eastern part of the Indian Archipelago ; and I was 
* Kolff, Voyage of the ' Dourga/ " p. 209. 
