contemporaries of the 17th century knew of that of Australia. That interior has
never been trodden by the foot of an European, and, considering the nature of the
country, of the climate, and of the inhabitants, many generations will probably pass
away before it is explored.
The geological formation of New Guinea, from its extent, will be found, no doubt, to
embrace almost every kind of formation. As yet, however, it has not been ascertained
to have any active volcano, nor, indeed, any volcanic formation, slate and limestone
being the rocks chiefly met with. A range of mountains running from east to west,
is visible from both the north and south coasts, and which, having the appearance of
being snow-clad, are computed not to be less than 20,000 feet above the level of the
sea. On the southern side of the smaller peninsula, and forming the back-ground to
the place which is called Triton bay, in latitude 3° 12', and where a settlement was
attempted in 1828 by the Dutch, there is a mountain trigonometrically measured,
which proved to be only 2460 feet high, and exclusive of the great central range, the
highest land even on the north side of the island is not thought to exceed 3200 feet.
The rivers of New Guinea are unknown, the embouchures of a few only having
been seen, but it is presumed from the height of the great interior mountain range
and the distance of the water-shed from the coasts, that there must exist some
considerable ones. At a place called Oetenata on the western coast and on the larger
peninsula in south latitude 5° and longitude 137° 30' east, the Dutch discoverers of
1828, examined the mouth of a river which they estimated at four-fifths of a mile
broad, but at a short distance above its debouchement it was found to branch off into
three different streams. No lakes have been seen or even heard of.
The whole island, as far as it has been seen is one uniform and luxuriant forest,
many of the trees of which run up to the height of 150 and 180 feet. The economical
use of the timber of these huge trees has not been determined, but the forests of
New Guinea produce three plants which have been immemorially in demand by the
nations of the Malayan islands, namely, the true nutmeg (Myristica moschata) the
missoy or masui (Cortex oninus) and the pulasari (Alyxia stellata). If the timber
should prove to be of good quality, it is probable that it may come to be in
demand with the European colonies of Australia, when these attain a dense
population.
The character of the zoology of New Guinea partakes more of that of Australia
than of the Malayan Archipelago, but in part it does so of both. Every one of the
larger mammiferous land animals is wanting, except the hog. No animal of the
bovine or equine families exist; no deer, no monkey, and no ferocious animal. The
able and indefatigable Dutch naturalists, who pursued their researches on the
southern coast for three months in 1828, found no more than six mammifers, and all
of them belonging to the marsupial or pouched class. Three of these were new
species, two of them kangaroos distinguished from all others of the same name
by their singular habit of living in trees. French naturalists had before discovered
another marsupial on the northern coast, and this with the hog, make the total
mammiferous animals of New Guinea, as yet ascertained, no more than seven species.
The paucity of mammiferous animals is in some degree balanced by the number of
species of birds. The Dutch, on a few points of the southern coast, collected 119
species belonging to 60 genera. Among these, birds of prey were rare, and the family
of pies altogether wanting. The most prevailing families consisted of the insect-
eaters, parrots, and pigeons. Among the first were the birds of paradise, confined to
the country of the Papuan negros. Among the parrots, were some from the size of
a sparrow to that of the cockatoo. One of these, among the most frequent, was
remarkable by its snow-white plumage, which, at a distance, gave a tree on which a
flock of them lighted, the appearance of a profusion of white blossoms. Aquatic
birds were numerous, both web-footed and waders, but more especially the latter.
Among the birds met with were the helmet-headed Cassowary, the suwari of the
Malays, and the megapodius which leaves its eggs to be hatched in earthen tumuli.
Of reptiles, the Dutch naturalists collected on the southern coast six and twenty
different species, namely, fifteen lizards, five serpents, five frogs, and one tortoise. Fish
appears to be abundant along the coast of New Guinea, many of the species esculent.
The men of New Guinea may now be safely pronounced to be one and the same
throughout the island, a variety of the oriental negro. No other indigenous race
has been found in any part of the coast, and the captives brought from the interior
as slaves are found to be essentbdly of the same race. The negro of New Guinea,
then, and in this matter the Dutch voyagers to the north, as well as to the south,
agree, are men below the middle stature of Europeans, or about the same as that of
the Malay, that is, from five feet three to five feet six inches high. The complexion
varies from a deep brown to a black; the nose is more or less flat with wide nostrils ;
the mouth is large, the lips thick, the teeth fine and not obliquely s e t; the iris of the
eye is black or brown, and the sclerotic coat tinged with yellow. The hair of the
head grows in spiral detached tufts to the length of, at least, nine inches or a foot.
The beard and whiskers partake, more or less, of this quality, and are ample. This
is, in fact, the negro of tropical Africa, the complexion less dark, the facial angle
less exaggerated, the stature shorter, and a woolly hair growing in separate tufts to a
considerable length, instead of being spread equally over the scalp and short.
Even with respect to the detached spiral tufts of the hair of the head, the Papuan is
not singular, for the hair of the Hottentot grows in the same manner.
With respect to the state of society, a very wide difference seems to exist in
different parts of the island. The inhabitants of the coast of the western peninsula
and of the bay of Geelvink, for ages in communication with the western nations
of the Archipelago, and especially with the people of the Moluccas, have been
imbued with a considerable portion of their civilisation. These have good
dwellings, are decently clothed, have large rowing and sailing vessels, a knowledge
of iron, a little agriculture, and two domestic animals, the hog and the dog. That
most of these improvements have been derived from strangers is attested by the
evidence of language. Thus, the names for iron, rice, the banana, the yam, the coco
and sago palms, are all taken, in such of their languages as have been examined, from
Malay and Javanese. Terms implying commercial intercourse are from the same
source. The names for silver and for bees-wax are Javanese, and all the numerals
are Malayan. As we proceed eastward, or remove to a distance from the nations of
the western part of the Archipelago, the tribes of New Guinea become more and
more barbarous; there being some of those of the interior and even of the coast,
that had never even seen the face of a stranger. When the Dutch, in 1828, visited
the southern coast, opposite to the western angle of the Gulf of Carpentaria in
Australia, they encountered, instead of the peaceable inhabitants of the coasts of the
western peninsula, a tribe of naked and hostile savages, every attempt to hold intercourse
with which proved vain. They had canoes, but neither iron, nor domesticated
animals. The point at which these men were seen was in south latitude 7° 28',
and east longitude 138° 58', and there is no ground for supposing that the inhabitants
of the remaining five degrees of longitude to which the island extends eastward,
whether of the coast or interior, are more advanced than these arrant savages. Of
even the most improved of the negroes of New Guinea, it may be safely asserted, that
in civilisation they are much below the aboriginal inhabitants of Borneo. At the
same time, even the rudest of them must be admitted to be more respectable savages
than the negros of the Andamans, of the Malayan peninsula, or of the Philippines,
and still more so than their neighbours the Australians.
As far as they are yet known, the inhabitants of New Guinea are divided into
small, independent, and generally, hostile tribes speaking different distinct languages.
Both on the north and south coast, the Dutch discoverers of 1828 and 1835 required
fresh interpreters as they moved on but a few miles. The population of a country
of which the inhabitants are in such a condition must be small, but this is all that
can be safely affirmed respecting its amount. Five inhabitants to a square mile
would give New Guinea a million of inhabitants, but one-fifth part of this number is
far more probable. Such, then, is the condition of a vast island, a large portion
of which is within the same latitudes, subject to the same monsoons, and having
the same temperature as Java, with its industry, its ancient civilisation, and its ten
millions of inhabitants. The contrast must be ascribed to difference in the fertility
of the soils of the two islands, to difference in locality, and most probably also to
difference in the quality Of the two opposite races which inhabit them.
New Guinea was certainly discovered by the Portuguese. Antonio d’Abreu was
sent by Alboquerque from Malacca in 1511, in order to find out the Moluccas, but
went only to Amboyna, from whence he proceeded to Banda. It is not certain whether
he actually visited New Guinea, but he could hardly have failed to hear of a country
immemorially visited by the inhabitants of the Moluccas, and not more than 170
miles distant from Banda, where he most probably saw negro slaves brought from it.
The Portuguese called the country New Guinea, from the palpable resemblance of
its inhabitants to those of Guinea in Africa, at the time well known to them. The
Malays and Javanese call it Tanah puwah-puwah, which Europeans have corrupted
into Papua. This word is a Malay or Javanese adjective, meaning “ woolly or frizzly,”
and is applied to any object having this quality. The term at full length would be