expect to find in the intervening region some homogeneous
indigenous, race presenting intermediate characters. For
example, between the whitest inhabitants of Europe and
the black F lings of South India, there are in the intervening
districts homogeneous races which form a gradual
transition from one to the other; while in America,
although there is a perfect transition.' from the Anglo-
Saxon to the negro, and from the Spaniard to the Indian,
there is no homogeneous race forming a natural transition
from one to the other. In the Malay Archipelago we have
an excellent example of two absolutely distinct races,
which appear to have approached each other, and intermingled
in an unoccupied territory at a very recent
epoch in the history of man; and I feel satisfied that no
unprejudiced person could study them on the spot without
being convinced that this is the true solution of the
problem, rather than the almost universally accepted view
that they are hut modifications of one and the same race.
The people of Muka live in that abject state of poverty
that is almost always, found where the sago-tree is abundant.
Very few of them take the trouble to plant any
vegetables or fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and
fish, selling a little tripang or tortoiseshell to buy the
scanty clothing they require. Almost all of them, however,
possess one or more Papuan slaves, on whose labour
they live in almost absolute idleness, just going out on
little fishing or trading excursions, as an excitement in
their monotonous existence. They are under the rule of
the Sultan of Tidore, and every- year have to pay a small
tribute of Paradise birds, tortoiseshell, or sago. To obtain
these, they go in the fine season on a trading voyage to the
mainland of New Guinea, and getting a few goods on
credit from some Ceram or Bugis trader, make hard
bargains with the natives, and gain -enough to pay their
tribute, and leave a little profit for ¡themselves.
Such a country is not a very pleasant one to live in, for as
there are no superfluities, there is nothing to sell; and had
it not been for a trader from Ceram who was residing
there during my stay, who had a small vegetable garden,
and whose men occasionally got a few spare fish, I should
often have had nothing to eat. Fowls, fruit, and vegetables
are luxuries very rarely to be purchased at Muka; and
even cocoa-nuts, so indispensable for eastern cookery,
are not to be obtained; for though there are some
hundreds of trees in the village, all the fruit is eaten
green, to supply the place of the vegetables the people
are too lazy to cultivate. Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or
plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous
weather being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on
what few eatable birds we could shoot, with an occasional
cuscus, or eastern opossum, the only quadruped, except
pigs, inhabiting the island.