Among the mountain fastnesses, defending themselves in tree-houses, one finds a frizzly-headed black negrito-like race hardly more than five feet in height. These are probably remnants of the "pigmy" pre-Dravidian or Negrito-Papuan element, which constituted the most ancient inhabitants of the island and who long ago were driven inland from the coveted coast. The burly negroid Papuans of the Great River deltas of western Papua differ widely from the lithe, active, brown-skinned, mop-headed natives of the eastern half of the southern coast; and Professors Haddon and Seligmann have decided that in eastern New Guinea many Proto-Polynesian, Melanesian and Malayan immigrants have mingled their blood with that of the more primitive Papuans. Thus there are many complexly associated ethnic elements in New Guinea, and often people living less than a hundred miles apart can not understand one another; in fact, each village has its peculiar dialect. Social customs and cultural standards in art and manufacture vary greatly from the same cause, and each tribe has some remarkable individual characteristics. In the Fly-River region, the village consists of a few huge houses with mere stalls for the families, which crowd for defence under the shelter of a single roof. Along the southern side of the eastern end of the island, however, each family has its own little thatched hut, and these are often built for defense upon piling over the sea, reminding one of the manner of life of the prehistoric Swiss-lake dwellers. Nearly 12,000 natives are at present employed by the whites as indentured laborers in Papua, their terms of service ranging from three years, upon agricultural work, to not more than eighteen months in mining. Their wages range from about $1.50 to $5.00 per month, and all payments must be made in the presence of a magistrate and in coin or approved bank notes. At every turn both employer and employed are wisely safeguarded; the native suffering imprisonment for desertion, and the employer being prohibited from getting the blacks into debt, or from treating them harshly or unjustly. Their enlistment must be voluntary and executed in the presence of a magistrate, and, after their term of service, the employer is obliged to return them to their homes.