The ethnologist, too, has in Papua a happy hunting ground; for the tribes on the fringe of exploration present wonderful varieties of type, and as the mountain fastnesses of the interior are gradually opened up, there can be no doubt that rich material for the propounding of new problems and perhaps the solution of old ones will come to light. Language is curiously diversified: here you meet a tribe with a distinct speech, and camping near them for a time you learn the common currency of their tongue; a few miles further on appears another people, perhaps not greatly differing in type, but with another language altogether. Thus at Dinawa, where we were encamped for five months on the foot-hills of the Owen Stanley range, the native phrase for “Make up the fire” was “Aloba di”; while at Foula, only eighteen miles away as the crow flies, but far further on foot, the phrase ran “Aukida pute.” It is in the statement “far further on foot,” of course, that the main reason of this linguistic variation is chiefly to be found; for travel in the Papuan highlands is extraordinarily toilsome, owing to the exceeding abruptness of the configuration, and the endless succession of almost razor-like ridges. Thus the tribes are confined to narrow areas. Long rough ascents and descents and devious windings are the portion of the wayfarer who wishes to reach some spot that may even be visible from his last halting-place. This experience, and our entire dependence on native carriers to transport our heavy baggage, with the various _contretemps_ and difficulties besetting the conduct of such a caravan, tempted me at one time to call this book “Ups and Downs in Papua,” as being at once literally and metaphorically true and descriptive.