Chapter 2: 2 (2)

The most important practical result of Captain Stanley's survey of the Louisiade Archipelago and the south coast of New Guinea, was the ascertaining the existence of a clear channel of at least 30 miles in width along the southern shores of these islands, stretching east and west between Cape Deliverance and the north-east entrance to Torres Strait--a distance of about 600 miles. This space was so traversed by the two vessels of the expedition without any detached reefs being discovered, that it does not seem probable that any such exist there, with the exception of the Eastern Fields of Flinders, the position and extent of which may be regarded as determined with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of navigation, and the reefs alluded to in Volume 1, which, if they exist at all, and are not merely the Eastern Fields laid down far to the eastward of their true position, must be sought for further to the southward. The shores in question may now be approached with safety, and vessels may run along them either by day or night under the guidance of the chart--without incurring the risk of coming upon unknown reefs, such as doubtless exist in other parts of the Coral Sea further to the southward--judging from the occasional discovery of a new one by some vessel which had got out of the beaten track. Whalers will no doubt find it worth their while--with the characteristic enterprise of their class--to push into those parts of the Coral Sea now first thrown open to them, and, although we have not as yet sufficient grounds to warrant the probability of success in the fishery, yet I may mention that whales were seen on several occasions from both of our vessels.

USEFUL PRODUCTIONS OF NEW GUINEA.

This naturally originates the question--to what extent do the Louisiade Archipelago and the south-east coast of New Guinea afford a field for commercial enterprise? What description of trade can be established there by bartering European goods for the productions of these countries? Unfortunately at present most of the evidence on this point is of a negative kind. Besides articles of food, such as pigs, yams, and coconuts, and weapons and ornaments of no marketable value--tortoise-shell, flax, arrowroot, massoy bark, and feathers of the birds of paradise were seen by us, it is true, but in such small quantities as to hold out at present no inducement for traders to resort to these coasts for the purpose of procuring them. That gold exists in the western and northern portions of New Guinea has long been known, that it exists also on the south-eastern shores of that great island is equally true, as a specimen of pottery procured at Redscar Bay contained a few small laminar grains of this precious metal. The clay in which the gold is embedded was probably part of the great alluvial deposit on the banks of the rivers, the mouths of which we saw in that neighbourhood, doubtless originating in the high mountains behind, part of the Owen Stanley Range.

It is evident, however, that our acquaintance with the productions of a great extent of coastline upon which we never once landed must be very slight, but with that little we must be content until some more complete exploration of the shores, which were only cursorily examined, and especially of the rivers of the Great Bight--which seem to offer a ready means of penetrating far into the interior of New Guinea--shall have been effected. That an expedition with this end in view will soon be undertaken is, however, highly improbable, the survey of the Rattlesnake having completed all that was requisite for the immediate purposes of navigation in those parts.

GEOLOGICAL REMARKS.

The fact of the existence of several active volcanoes on islands immediately adjacent to the north coast of New Guinea (first made known by Dampier) and the circumstance of volcanic bands traversing the length of many of the great islands of the Malayan Archipelago, and others as far to the southward as New Caledonia and New Zealand, rendered it extremely probable that we should have found indisputable signs of comparatively recent volcanic action in the south-east part of New Guinea. We saw no volcanoes, however, and the great central mountain chain appeared to me to be probably granitic. The large Brumer Island is composed of igneous rocks as formerly mentioned; and at Dufaure Island I obtained from some canoes which came off to us a few smooth water-worn pieces of hornblendic porphyry. Some specimens of obsidian, or volcanic glass, were also procured from the natives at the latter place, where sharp-edged fragments are used for shaving with; one variety is black, another of a light reddish-brown, with dark streaks. Mount Astrolabe is apparently of trap formation, as I have already stated. Some conical hills scattered along the coast may possibly be of volcanic origin, especially one of that form rising to the height of 645 feet from the lowland behind Redscar Head. It is in this neighbourhood also that we find the upraised calcareous rocks of modern date exhibited by the Pariwara Islands and the neighbouring headland, with which they were probably once continuous; near this, too, the barrier reef of the coast ceases at Low Island, which it encloses, although its line is continued under water, as a ridge of coral, as far as the South-west Cape, where the coral ends, unless the shoals apparently blocking up the channel south of Yule Island are of the same formation.

LOUISIADE ARCHIPELAGO.

Reference to the outline chart will enable the reader to follow me in some general remarks which did not properly enter into the narrative. The Louisiade Archipelago, reduced to what I conceive to be its natural limits, includes that extensive group of islands comprised between the parallels of 10 degrees 40 minutes and 11 degrees 40 minutes South latitude, and the meridians of 151 degrees and 154 degrees 30 minutes East longitude. About eighty are already known, and probably many others remain yet to be discovered in the north-west, a large space there being as yet a blank upon the chart. All the islands of the group, with the exception of the low ones of coral formation to the westward, appear to be inhabited, but probably nowhere very densely, judging from the comparatively small number of natives which we saw, and the circumstance of the patches of cultivation being small and scattered, while the greater part of the large islands is either covered with dense forest, or exhibits extensive grassy tracts with lines and clumps of trees. Such of the islands as were examined consisted of mica slate, the line of direction of the beds of which is nearly the same as that of the Archipelago itself, and the physical appearance of the other islands leads me to believe that the same rock prevails there also.

CORAL REEFS OF THE LOUISIADE ARCHIPELAGO DESCRIBED.

One of the most remarkable features connected with the Louisiade Archipelago is the manner in which its shores are protected by the coral reefs which have frequently been alluded to above. The principal of these are good examples of that kind distinguished by the name of barrier reefs. Rossel Reef has already been described, and the only other large one of this description which we saw more than a portion of, is that partially encircling South-east Island at a variable distance from the land, then passing to the westward as far as longitude 152 degrees 40 minutes, where it ceases to show itself above water; thence, however, the edge of a bank of soundings (represented on the chart by a dotted line) which is suddenly met with in coming from the deep blue unfathomed water to the southward, can be traced in a continued line to the westward as far as the Jomard Isles, whence it turns round to the northward for ten miles further, where our examination ended. This last may be considered as a submarine extension of the barrier, which probably reappears again above water, and passing to the northward of the Calvados Group, reaches as far as the northern entrance to Coral Haven, enclosing nearly all the high islands of the Archipelago. The expanse of water inside when not occupied by land usually exhibits a depth of from 15 to 30 fathoms, with numerous sunken patches of coral, and several reefs which partially dry at low-water. The shores of the islands also are generally protected by fringing coral reefs, the largest of which is that extending off the west and south side of Piron Island to a distance of seven or eight miles, with a well defined border towards Coral Haven.

At the western portion of the Louisiade Archipelago the reefs seen by us exhibit great irregularity of outline, continuity, and width. Some are linear reefs, others atolls* more or less distinct in character, and the remainder are usually round or oval. Viewed as a whole they form an interrupted chain, with numerous deepwater channels, which terminates in the West Barrier Reef of the chart but is connected with the coast of New Guinea by a bank of soundings, with, probably, a well-defined margin. Many low, wooded islands are scattered along this line. I know of no distinguishing feature presented by the coral reefs of the Louisiade compared with those which I have seen elsewhere. One remarkable occurrence, however, connected with them, may be mentioned. While passing in the ship the most northern point of Rossel Island, I observed upon the reef, about a hundred yards inside its outer border, a series of enormous insulated masses of dead coral rising like rocks from the shallow water. The largest of these, examined through a good telescope from the distance of half a mile, was about twenty feet in length and twelve in height, with a well-defined high-water mark. It formed quite a miniature island, with tufts of herbage growing in the clefts of its rugged sides, and a little colony of black-naped terns perched upon the top as if incubating.

(*Footnote. "An atoll differs from an encircling barrier reef only in the absence of land within its central expanse; and a barrier reef differs from a fringing reef in being placed at a much greater distance from the land with reference to the probable inclination of its submarine foundation, and in the presence of a deep water lagoon-like space or moat within the reef." The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs by Charles Darwin page 146.)

THEORY OF THEIR FORMATION.

I had only once before seen a similar exhibition of such great and permanently elevated masses of dead coral upon a living reef--a phenomenon of much interest in connection with Mr. Darwin's theory of the mode of formation of coral reefs. This was on a portion of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, visited in company with Mr. Jukes, who has published a detailed account of it.* In both cases the only obvious explanation is that these huge blocks--too massive to have been hove up from deep water into their present position by any storm--reached their present level by the elevation of the sea bottom on which they were formed.

(*Footnote. Voyage of H.M.S. Fly by J.B. Jukes volume 1 page 340.)

Before quitting the subject of the coral reefs of the Louisiade I may be permitted to express my conviction of the perfect manner in which many, perhaps all of the appearances which they present may be satisfactorily accounted for by the application of Mr. Darwin's theory. We have only to presume the whole of the Archipelago to have once formed part of New Guinea--a supposition highly probable in itself (suggested even by a careful examination of the large charts) and strengthened by the total absence of signs of volcanic agency in what the theory in question would require to be an area of subsidence as opposed to those of elevation, such as are known to exist in parts of New Guinea.

ETHNOLOGY OF NEW GUINEA.

The ethnology of New Guinea is involved in so much confusion and obscurity for the want of sufficient data, that even with the aid of some additional recently acquired information bearing upon the subject, I wish the following brief remarks to be regarded more as probable assumptions than as views the correctness of which admits of demonstration. Besides, to give all the proofs, such as they are, would cause much repetition of what has been already stated above.

I must premise that most of our previous definite information regarding the inhabitants of New Guinea applies only to a small portion of the north-west coast of that great island in the neighbourhood of Port Dorey, which is known to be peopled by several distinct varieties of mankind, of which one (with which, as occupying the coast, we are best acquainted) is designated the Papuan, or Papua, as generally understood by that appellation when used in its restricted signification. These Papuans, according to Dumont D'Urville,* compose the principal part of the population of Port Dorey, and, judging from his description, I have no hesitation in referring to them also the inhabitants of the Louisiade Archipelago and the South-East coast of New Guinea, and agree with Prichard (in opposition to the views of others) that they "constitute a genuine and peculiar tribe."**

(*Footnote. Voyage de l'Astrolabe tome 4 page 603.)

(**Footnote. Researches into the Physical History of Mankind volume 5 page 227.)

NATIVES OF NORTH-WEST COAST.

Another variety among the inhabitants of Port Dorey, spoken of by M. d'Urville as the Harfours, is supposed by him to include, along with another race of which little is known--named Arfaki--the indigenous inhabitants of the north-west part of New Guinea. The Harfours, Haraforas, or Alforas, for they have been thus variously named, have often been described as inhabiting the interior of many of the large islands of the Malayan Archipelago, but, as Prichard remarks, "nothing can be more puzzling than the contradictory accounts which are given of their physical characters and manners. The only point of agreement between different writers respecting them is the circumstance that all represent them as very low in civilisation and of fierce and sanguinary habits."* Their distinctness as a race has been denied with much apparent reason by Mr. Earl, and they are considered by Prichard to be merely various tribes of the Malayo-Polynesian race retaining their uncivilised and primitive state. Be this as it may, of these Harfours D'Urville states, that they reminded him of the ordinary type of the Australians, New Caledonians, and the black race of Oceania, from their sooty colour, coarse but not woolly hair, thick beards, and habit of scarifying the body. I mention these Harfours for the purpose of stating that no people answering to the description of them given above were seen by us in New Guinea or the Louisiade Archipelago.

(*Footnote. Ibid page 255.)

VARIETIES OF THE PAPUAN RACE AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.

It appears to me that there are two distinct varieties of the Papuan race inhabiting the south-east portion of New Guinea. The first occupies the western shores of the Great Bight, and probably extends over the whole of the adjacent country, along the banks of Aird River, and the other great freshwater channels. Judging from the little that was seen of them during the voyage of the Fly, these people appear to agree with the Torres Strait Islanders--an offshoot, there is reason to believe, of the same stock--in being a dark and savage race, the males of which go entirely naked.

The second variety occupies the remainder of the south-east coast of New Guinea and the Louisiade Archipelago. Their characteristics have already been given in this work, as seen at intermediate points between Cape Possession and Coral Haven; they agree in being a lighter-coloured people than the preceding, and more advanced in civilisation: mop-headed, practising betel-chewing, and wearing the breech-cloth. Without entering into the question of their supposed origin, I may state that, in some of their physical, intellectual, and moral characters, and also partially in their language, they seem to me to show indications of a Malayo-Polynesian influence, probably acquired before their arrival in New Guinea, along the shores of which they seem to have extended, colonising the Louisiade during their progress, which at Cape Possession was finally arrested by their meeting with the other section of the race alluded to in the preceding paragraph.

It would be curious to see the effects produced at the point of junction of these two sections of the same race, probably somewhere between Aird River and Cape Possession. It is not unlikely that the Papuans of Redscar Bay and its vicinity derived the use of the bow and arrow from their neighbours to the westward--and that the kind of canoe in use in Torres Strait was an introduction from the eastward, is rendered probable--setting aside other considerations--by a circumstance suggested by the vocabularies, i.e. that the name for the most characteristic part of the canoe in question--the outrigger float--is essentially the same from the Louisiade to Cape York.*

(*Footnote. Louisiade: Sama. Darnley Island: Charima. Dufaure Island: Sarima. Prince of Wales Islands: Sarima. Redscar Bay: Darima. Cape York: Charima.)

I have alluded in a preceding part of this work (Volume 1) to the circumstance that the small vocabulary obtained at the Louisiade may, along with others, throw some light upon the question: whence has Australia been peopled?

ORIGIN OF THE AUSTRALIAN RACE.

It may safely be assumed that the aborigines of the whole of Australia (exclusive of Van Diemen's Land) have had one common origin; in physical character the natives of Cape York seem to me to differ in no material respect from those of New South Wales, South or Western Australia, or Port Essington,* and, I believe I am borne out by facts in stating that an examination of vocabularies and grammars (more or less complete) from widely remote localities, still further tends to prove the unity of the Australian tribes as a race.

(*Footnote. M. Hombron (attached to D'Urville's last expedition as surgeon and naturalist) considers--as the result of personal observation--that the aborigines of New South Wales exhibit certain points of physical difference from those of the North Coast of Australia, meaning, I suppose, by the latter, those natives seen by him at Raffles Bay and Port Essington. I may also mention that M. Hombron considers the Northern Australians to be a distinct subdivision of the Australian race, in which he also classes the inhabitants of the smaller islands of Torres Strait (as Warrior Island for instance) attributing the physical amelioration of the latter people to the fact of their possessing abundant means of subsistence afforded by the reefs among which they live, and the necessity of possessing well constructed canoes as their only means of procuring fish and dugong, stated by him to constitute the chief food of the Torres Strait islanders. Voyage au Pole Sud, etc. Zoologie tome 1 par M. Hombron pages 313, 314 et 317.)

The two places from one of which the Australian population may be supposed to have been more IMMEDIATELY derived, are Timor on the one hand and New Guinea on the other: in the former case the first settlers would probably have landed somewhere on the north-west coast, in the latter, at Cape York.

Mr. Eyre believes that there are "grounds sufficient to hazard the opinion that Australia was first peopled on its north-western coast, between the parallels of 12 and 16 degrees South latitude. From whence we might surmise that three grand divisions had branched off from the parent tribe, and that from the offsets of these the whole continent has been overspread."* Proceeding still further Mr. Eyre has very ingeniously attempted to explain the gradual peopling of Australia, and even indicate the probable routes taken by the first settlers during the long periods of years which must have elapsed before the whole continent was overrun by the tribes now collectively forming the Australian race. Dr. Prichard, when alluding to the probable mode of dispersion of the black tribes of the Indian Archipelago, conjectures that one of the branches during the migratory march probably passed from Java to Timor, and from thence to Australia.** Dr. Latham also inclines to the belief that Australia was peopled from Timor and not from New Guinea, judging, in the absence of positive proof, from the probability that "occupancy had begun in Australia before migration across Torres Strait had commenced in New Guinea," inferred "from the physical differences between the Australian and the Papuan, taken with the fact that it is scarcely likely that the Papuans of Torres Strait would have failed in extending themselves in Australia had that island been unoccupied." Timor also is much nearer than New Guinea to the REMOTE source--assumed to be the continent of Asia--whence the Australians have been derived.***

(*Footnote. Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia etc. by E.J. Eyre Volume 2 page 405.)

(**Footnote. Researches into the Physical History of Mankind Volume 5 page 214.)

(***Footnote. Natural History of the Varieties of Man by R.G. Latham, M.D. pages 257 and 253.)

The unity of the Australian race being admitted implies one common origin, and that such was not derived from New Guinea, can scarcely, I think, be doubted. Upon examining the neighbourhood of the point of contact between the New Guinea-men and the Australians, we find Cape York and the neighbouring shores of the mainland occupied by genuine and unmixed Australians, and the islands of Torres Strait with the adjacent coast of New Guinea by equally genuine Papuans; intermediate in position between the two races, and occupying the point of junction at the Prince of Wales Islands we find the Kowrarega tribe of blacks. At first I was inclined to regard the last more as degraded Papuans than as improved Australians: I am now, however, fully convinced that they afford an example of an Australian tribe so altered by contact with the Papuan tribes of the adjacent islands as at length to resemble the latter in most of their physical, intellectual and moral characteristics. Thus the Kowraregas have acquired from their island neighbours the art of cultivating the ground, and their superior dexterity in constructing and navigating large canoes, together with some customs--such as that of preserving the skulls of their enemies as trophies: while they retain the use of the spear and throwing-stick, practise certain mysterious ceremonies connected with the initiation of boys to the rights of manhood--supposed to be peculiar to the Australian race--and hold the females in the same low and degraded position which they occupy throughout Australia.

That the Kowraregas settled the Prince of Wales Islands either prior to or nearly simultaneously, with the spreading downwards from New Guinea of the Papuans of the islands, scarcely admits of absolute proof: but that the former have existed as a tribe for a long period of years is shown by the changes which I presume to have taken place in their language. While this last unquestionably belongs to the Australian class, as clearly indicated by Dr. Latham's analysis of the pronouns,* one of the characteristic parts of the language, and, therefore, least liable to change, yet the occurrence in the Kowrarega of a considerable number of words resembling and often identical with those of the known Papuan languages of Torres Strait,** and which I believe to have been derived from the latter, seems to indicate a degree of long-continued intercourse between the two races: for changes in language to so great an extent are not effected in a short space of time any more than the nearly complete fusion of two different races which has evidently taken place at the Prince of Wales Islands. Scarcely opposible to this supposition is the extreme improbability that the Papuans, who had nothing to gain from so comparatively inferior a race as the Australian, should be indebted to the latter for the words common to both found to exist in the Kowrarega and Miriam languages.

(*Footnote. See the Appendix.)

(**Footnote. As means of comparison I used the Darnley and Murray Island vocabulary given in Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, also a manuscript one of my own, which furnishes some additional particulars; some words from Massid given by Jukes; and a few from Mount Ernest procured by myself.)

Another mode of procedure suggests itself to one endeavouring to trace the proximate origin of the Australians--and that is, to search the records of voyagers and others for any traces of such customs, the use of certain implements, etc., as are supposed to be most characteristic of these people. Yet, taking, for example, the boomerang* and throwing-stick,** we find nothing approaching to either of these instruments in any part of New Guinea yet visited by Europeans: in the absence of any evidence to the contrary from Timor, they may be considered as true Australian inventions; and assuming the Australians to be the descendants of a colony from Timor, the circumstance of the natives of Melville Island--a part of Australia distant only 200 miles from their presumed place of origin--being ignorant of the use of the throwing-stick, is in favour of part of this supposition. But a thorough investigation of the question of the origin of the Australian race, and their dispersion over the continent, although NOW I believe rendered quite practicable by the great mass of additional information contributed by voyagers and travellers since Mr. Eyre wrote upon the subject, is not consistent with the objects of this work.

(*Footnote. Some of the fowling-sticks of the ancient Egyptians closely resemble the boomerang in form and appear to have been used in a similar manner, but I am not aware that anything approaching it has been seen elsewhere. A specimen which suggested this remark is exhibited in the British Museum Egyptian Room Case 36, 37 Number 5646.)

(**Footnote. The throwing-stick is completely represented in the Aleutian Islands (See in Ethnographical Room of British Museum, a specimen in case 16): in shape it differs from the Australian ones (which themselves vary in different localities) but the principle of construction and mode of use are precisely the same. In the islands of Tanna and New Caledonia a contrivance is in use to produce the same effect as the throwing-stick in propelling the spear; but, apart from other considerations, the nature of the instrument (a piece of stiff plaited cord six inches long, with an eye in one end and a knot at the other) is such as quite to preclude the probability of the Australians having derived their throwing-stick from this source.)