W a t e r C h a s e
<?? H o g s .
F o r m o f t h e
F a b u a n s .,
fox-looking dogs, for the purpofe o f purfuit by fea or land ; for
the Papuans have a moft Angular water chafe, which is that o f
hogs; they follow thofe animals as they are fwitnming among
the fmall iflands, and fhoot them with their arrows, or transfix
them with fpears.. The fwine fwim in a line, and the hindmofl
hogs reft their fnouts on the backs o f the preceding. Mr. Forrejl *
gives us a reprefentation of this kind o f hunting, and aHo of the
perfons, boats, àndthe naval'apparatus of thefe fportfmen. They
are excellent-archers ; their arrows are often fix feet long ; the
bow is generally of flit bamboo, and the firing o f fplit rattans.
T h e afpedt of thefe people is frightful and hideous ; the
men are ftout in body, their ikin of a ihining black, rough,
and often disfigured with marks like thofe oecafioned by thé
leprofy ; their eyes are very large, their nofes flat, mouth from
ear to ear, their lips amazingly thick, efpecially the upper lip ;
their hair woolly, either a fhining black or fiery redd M. Sonnerat
imagines the laft to be owing to fome powder. It is dreffed
in a vaft buih, fo as to refemble a mop ; fome are three-feet in
circumference, the leaft two and a half ; in this they ftick their
comb, con lifting of four or five diverging teeth, with which
they occafionally drefs their frizzled locks, to give them a greater
bulk ; they fometimes ornament them with feathers o f the birds
of Paradife ; others add to their deformity by boring their nofes;
and palling through them rings, pieces of bone, or flicks'; and
many, by way o f ornament, hang round-their necks the tufks
of boars. The heads of the women are o f lefs fize than thofe
of the men, and in their left ear they wear fmall brafs rings..
«¿Tab. xi.,
T h e
The men go naked, excepting a fmall wrapper round their waifts,
made o f the fibres o f the coco. The women ufe a covering, in
general of the coarfe Surat baftas, tucked up behind, fo as to
leave their bodies and thighs expofed to view. The children
have no fort of cloathing.
On an ifle in Lat 30 44', S-chouten obferved that the women W o m e k .
were more hideous than the men; their face refembled that o f a
monkey ; their breafts hung down to their middle ; their fto-
machs enormoufly large, and their limbs moft difproportibnally
Gender; one fquinted; a fecond had an arm monftroufly fwelled ;
a third, a le g ; in ihort, there was not one but had fome defeit
that indicated an unwholefome climate. Such is the account
given in * Les Navigations aux Ferres aujlrales.
Off the north-weft part o f Salwatty is the long ifle o f Patanta, P a t a n t a .
divided from the former by a narrow but long paflage, called
Pitt's ftreights; Mr. Dalrymple gives views o f both o f the iflands.
The land is high on each fide, but that o f Patanta remarkably
f o ; the mountains are double and treble, and rife above each
other into moft exalted fummits, ending in points, or in rounded
forms, and quite cloathed with fine woods.
D ampler, in 1699, failed between the north fide of Patanta and
the adjacent ifland, through a ftreight fecn in the maps under the
name o f the new Pajfage ; D ampler miftook the ifle o f Patanta
for the extreme north-weft part o f the Papuas land, or New
Guinea, and pafled under cape Monkaite:, the moft wefterly point
of Patanta, which he fuppofes to have been the cape Mabo of the
JGutch. Immediately afterwards he fell in with fome fmall iflands,
* Vo l.i.,p . 400.
D d 2 which