her 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-heade