flat; the eyes are small, always black, as with other
orientals, among whom any other colour would be
considered a monstrosity.
The complexion is generally brown, but varies
a little m the different tribes. Neither climate,
nor the habits of the people, seem to have any
thing to do with it. The fairest races are generally
towards the west, but some of them, as the
Battaks of Sumatra, upon the very equator. The
Javanese, who live most comfortably, are among
the darkest people of the Archipelago; the wretched
Dayaks, or cannibals of Borneo, among the
fairest.
The hair of the head with the brown-coloured
race is long, lank, harsh, and always black. There
is a remarkable connection, it- may here be observed,
between the colour and texture of the hair
and the colour of the complexion. The hair is
dark and harsh in proportion as the complexion is
dark, until, in the jet black African, it end in a
woolly or frizzled texture. If, among Asiatic nations,
an individual be discovered with a complexion
of remarkable fairness, we may reckon upon
finding the hair of a brownish hue, and of a soft
European texture.
The hair on every part of the body of the Indian
islander, the head excepted, is scanty. On the limbs
and breast of the male there is no hair at all, and the
beard is naturally very defective. The Mahomedaa
priests, in imitation of the Arabs, are fond of wearing
a beard, but the utmost they can obtain, by
great care and assiduous culture, are a few straggling
hairs, which make them an object of ridicule
to those who pride themselves on this supposed
evidence of manhood. The rest of the community
pluck out, at an early period of life, what no
pains would render respectable.
To express surprise at, or to attempt to account for
this scarcity.of hair with the Indian islanders, would
be about as reasonable as ,to investigate the cause
why other races have a superfluity. The fact of a
scarcity of hair with ,a considerable portion of the
human species is now well ascertained, and, whether
in the present instance it bear any analogy
to the defect of hair in the lower animals, common
to all tropical countries, is of little moment. *
* The following is the illustrious Dampier’s excellent description
of the brown-coloured race, in the persons of the
people of Mindanao : “ The Mindanayans, properly so called,
are men of mean statures, small limbs, straight bodies, and little
heads. Their faces are oval, their foreheads flat, with
black small eyes, short low noses, pretty large mouths; their
lips thin and red, their teeth black, yet very sound ; their ha*r
black and straight; the colour of their skin tawney, but inclining
to a brighter yellow than some other Indians, especially
the women. They have a custom to wear their thumb-nails
Very long, especially that on their left thumb, for they do never
cut it, but scrape it often,”—Dampier's Vopages} Vol. I.