have vigorous constitutions. Some islands they
enjoy almost exclusively to themselves, yet they
have in no instance risen above the most abject
state of barbarism. Whenever they are encountered
by the fairer races, they are hunted down like
the wild animals of the forest, and driven to the
mountains or fastnesses incapable of resistance.
Such is the description which my own experience
warrants me in giving of the negro races.
A more robust people are said to occupy New Guinea
and some of the islands near it, but I have
seen none of them, and the accounts which voyagers
have rendered of them are so indistinct and
imperfect, that it is utterly impossible to come to
any accurate conclusion respecting them. Forrest,
who had good opportunities of observing them, is
as usual most unsatisfactory. Sonnerat’s account
is the best, and I now transcribe it. _ “ The Papuans,”
says he, “ are the people who inhabit New
Guinea and the islands lying near to it. They are
not much known, and their country not much frequented.
There is something hideous and frightful
in their appearance. They are robust men of
a shining black colour. Their skins are nevertheless
harsh and rough, and disfigured by marks like
those of the Elephantiasis. They have very large
eyes, flat noses, and very wide mouths. Their lips,
especially the upper one, very thick. Their hair
is much curled and frizzled» and of a brilliant black,
or fiery red” * This description is throughout
vague and general, and the assertion that the hair
is sometimes of a fiery red at the conclusion of it,
throws discredit on the whole.
The question of the first origin of both the negro
and brown-complexioned races, appears to me
to be one far beyond the compass of human reason.
By very superficial observers, the one has been supposed
a colony from Africa, and the other an emigration
from Tartary. Either hypothesis is too
absurd to bear the slightest touch of examination.
Not to say that each race is radically distinct from
the stock from which it is imagined to have proceeded
; the physical state of the globe, the nature
of man, and all that we know of his history, must
be overturned to render these violent suppositions
possible.
The subject, notwithstanding, is one of such curious
speculation and interest, that it cannot be
passed over altogether in silence. It is by a comparison
of languages,-—of customs and manners,—of
arbitrary institutions,—and by reference to the geographical
and moral condition of the different races
alone, that we can expect to form any rational hypothesis
on this obscure subject. The only connection
in language, manners, and customs, which exists between
the inhabitants of the Archipelago, and any
* Voyage à la Nouvelle Guinée, par ÎVI. Sonm rat.