customs, and then endeavoured to show how these customs
might be gradually modified, so as to be more healthful
and more agreeable. A few energetic and devoted men
acting in this way might probably effect a decided moral
improvement on the lowest savage tribes, whereas trading
missionaries, teaching what Jesus said, but not doing as
He did, can scarcely be expected to do more than give
them a very little of the superficial varnish of religion.
I)orey harbour is in a fine bay, at one extremity of
which an elevated point juts out, and, with two or three
small islands, forms a sheltered anchorage. The only vessel
it contained when we arrived was a Dutch brig, laden with
coals for the use of a war-steamer, which was expected
daily, on an exploring expedition along the coasts of Hew
Guinea, for the purpose of fixing on a locality for a colony.
In the evening we paid it a visit, and landed at the village
of Dorey, to look out for a place ’where I could build my
house. Mr. Otto also made arrangements for me with
some of the native chiefs, to send men to cut wood,
rattans, and bamboo the next day.
The villages of Mansinam and Dorey presented some
features quite new to me. The houses all stand completely
in the water, and are reached by long rude
bridges. They are very low, with the roof shaped like
a large boat, bottom upwards. The posts which support
the houses, bridges, and platforms are small crooked
sticks, placed without any regularity, and looking as if
they were tumbling down. The floors are also formed of
sticks, equally irregular, and so loose and far apart that
I found it almost impossible to walk on them. The walls
consist of bits of boards, old boats, rotten mats, attaps,
and palm-leaves, stuck in anyhow here and there, and
having altogether the most wretched and dilapidated
appearance it is possible to conceive. Under the eaves
of many of the houses hang human skulls, the trophies of
their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who
often come to attack them. A large boat-shaped council-
house is supported on larger posts, each of which is grossly
carved to represent a naked male or female human figure,
and other carvings still more revolting are placed upon
the platform before the entrance. The view of an ancient
lake-dweller’s village, given as the frontispiece of Sir
Charles Lyell’s “ Antiquity of Man,” is chiefly founded on
a sketch of this very village of Dorey; but the extreme
regularity of the structures there depicted has no place
in the original, any more than it probably had in the
actual lake-villages.
The people who inhabit these miserable huts are very
similar to the Ke and Aru islanders, and many of them
are very handsome, being tall and well-made, with well-
cut features and large aquiline noses. Their colour is a
deep brown, often approaching closely to black, and the
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