In my second chapter I described the warlike Tugeri of Dutch New Guinea, a tribe whose ferocity has been such a thorn in the side of British and Netherland officials alike. I certainly should not have cared to trust myself with the Tugeri, but with the gentler people of the south-east portion of the island there was comparatively no great risk. My first close acquaintance with the Papuans was with the Motuan tribe, who lived around Port Moresby, and my earliest acquaintances were made among the potters of Hanuabada. The Motuans are fairly numerous, numbering, it is said, about 1400 in the Port Moresby district; they may be taken as the type of coast natives in this quarter, and roughly, for the purposes of this account, I may distinguish between “coast-men” and “hill-men,” taking the former to extend as far up as Epa. The Motuan men are well-grown, standing about 5 feet 10 inches on an average, the height of the women being from about 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches. Their features are very varied, and do not incline to any single type. The colour is of a rich bronze, and they are well and sturdily made. Most of them have mop-like hair very much frizzed, and some wear it tied up, while others have it short and curly, looking almost as if it had been cropped and lying close to the scalp. What we may call the “cropped” hair required little dressing, but to keep the mop hair in order they use a comb like a wide fork with five prongs and a fairly longish handle. With this implement they comb out their hair elaborately. [Illustration: HANUABADA WOMEN WEARING THE RAMI, OR PETTICOAT MADE OF LEAVES. ] For ceremonial dances, and on festal occasions, they wear a wonderful head-dress made of cockatoo feathers, which looks, when it is assumed, like an enormous flat horseshoe, passing over the top of the head and slightly in front of the ears. It conceals the ears entirely when the observer looks the wearer full in the face. The most cherished ornament, however, is the necklace of dogs’ teeth, which is prized by the Papuans beyond any article of “trade” that the traveller can give them. Not even a knife or an axe is so welcome, nor can the traveller get so much work out of the Papuan for any steel implement as he can for one or two teeth. I knew of a case where a missionary, not with any fraudulent intention, but merely from a desire to test Papuan intelligence, manufactured imitation dogs’ teeth very cunningly out of bone, and offered them to a native. The man, however, had too keen an eye to be done; he weighed the teeth critically in his hand for a moment, and then handed them back with a scornful “No good.”