or New Guinea, a very large island, or, as some suppose, a cluster of islands, the coast having never been explored, and extending from the south end of Gilolo and the north coast of Ceram, in a south-west direction, about 1200 miles. It is indented by very deep bays, so that it resembles a chain of peninsulas; and it is because none of these inlets have been explored that it is uncertain whether it be all one island or a chain of islands. It is separated from the neighbouring island of New Holland by a narrow strait, discovered by Captain Flinders, in the Investigator. Viewed from the shore, Papua rises gradually into hills of considerable elevation; but there are no mountains of any great altitude. The country produces palm trees, and timber of a large size; the cocoanut, and the two species of the bread-fruit tree; also pine-apples and plantains, nutmeg trees in a wild state, and spice. The woods abound with wild hogs, which are hunted and killed by the natives with spears, and bows and arrows. The indigenous inhabitants of the interior practise gardening, and some sort of agriculture, and supply the inhabitants on the coast with food, in exchange for axes, knives, and other sorts of coarse cutlery. The Malays and Chinese chiefly carry on this traffic, supplying the natives also with blue and red cloths, and carrying back in return bark, slaves, ambergris, sea-slug, tortoise-shell, small pearls, and black and red loories, birds of paradise, and other birds, stuffed, in which art the Papuans are very dexterous. The island has chiefly been seen by navigators from the sea. Captain Forrest, who landed on the north-west coast, observed the structure of the Papuan dwellings, which was extremely singular, being built upon posts fixed several yards below the water-mark, and a long stage supported by posts communicating with the land just at high-water mark. The settlement contains many families, who live in cabins on each side of a common hall that runs through the middle of it, and has two doors, one opening to the land and the other to the water, for the purpose of facilitating the escape of the inmates when they are attacked by their enemies. The greater part of the inhabitants continue in their original state of barbarity and nakedness, devoid of any fixed homes, and subsisting on the precarious produce of the chase or of the forests. They are engaged in continual wars with their neighbours; and about April and March they assemble in great numbers, and make war on Gilolo, Ceram, Amboyna, and Ambloo. The British have had as yet but little intercourse with these savages; and their ferocious habits do not encourage any very close alliance. In 1791 they contrived to decoy the surgeon of the Panther, a Bombay cruiser, into their boats, where he was murdered; after which they had the audacity to make an attempt on the ship, discharging on it a shower of arrows, and wounding several of the crew. They were, however, soon dispersed by a discharge from the guns and small arms.