A photograph of four New Guinea boys on the foreshore, looking at the camera. While three of the boys are sitting on a large rock with their backs to its sides, the fourth is standing up with his hands by his sides. The boy standing and the two on his right (viewer's left) are wearing white armbands [mwali] on both arms, just above the elbow. The boy standing is also wearing a white circular shell necklace, possibly made from a clam shell, and a narrow tight belt around his waist with a long tab covering his penis. The other boys are wearing loin cloths. Five European ships can be seen in the very distance.

A number of missionary societies worked in Papua New Guinea during the 1880s, including the London Missionary Society and Missionaries du Sacre-Coeur. The London Missionary Society owned the Ellengowen (1866), selling it sometime in 1881. The LMS received a new schooner-rigged missionary ship, also called Ellengowan (1881), in 1881.

Dr Coppinger records arriving off Somerset and Albany Island in early June and remained in the Torres Strait area for four months. They left on 1 October for Port Darwin, arriving on 20 October 1881.

The photograph is captioned: 'New Guinea Boys from Missionary Schooner.'