yet entered the Indian Archipelago, or had at least not spread
themselves far beyond the limits of one or two of the principal
islands. Wé may then imagine the black tribês taking their
migratory march along the mountain-chains of the Malayan
peninsula, where they left a remnant of the stock still well*
known and strongly characterised. Thence we may mark
their gradual progress from one great island to another till
they reached the shore of New Guinea, after Occupying all or
nearly all the islands to the northward of that country. The
existence -of large quadrupeds on several of the principal
islands has given rise to a probable conjecture that this archipelago
was originally formed by the disruption of an ancient
continent through the invasion of equatorial currents, at a
time when Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes, and Java had already
been stocked with land animals of a ki,nd not found in remote
„islands. But whether tribes of the human Species spread
themselves by a land journey, or by means of canoes made
their way from one island to another, they appear from
various indications to have peopled most parts of the archipelago
long before the arrival of the first colonies of Polynesians.
They still exist, as we have already remarked, in
the interior of most of the greater islands of the Indian seas*
To the westward we trace them to the Andaman Islands in
the Gulf of Bengal, and to the northward to the Malayan
mountain-chain, and from thence to Bomèö, the Philippines,
the Moluccas and New Guinea, Luisiade, the chain of Solomon’s
Isles, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Tasmania;
while another branch, taking a moré southern direction,
appears to have passed from Java along the chain of islands
which reaches nearly in a straight line to Timor, and lastly to
Australia.
The history of these tribes, and more especially that of their
languages, is as yet too little known to justify any assertion
as to their mutual relations in a general point of view to each
other; and though they have many moral and physical qualities
in common, these do not amount to a proof of real kindred.
We shall therefore leave the question of their affinity as a
subject of future investigation, and for the present divide the
human inhabitants of Kelmnonesia into the Following classes
on the ground of their physical diversities.
1. Puny Negroes of the Indian Seas. These are races of
small stature, black or nearly black,, with woolly hair, and
features-bearing a strong resemblanpqio the Negroes, of Guinea.
2. Papuas. Tribes of people remarkable for their bushy
frizzled hair, which grows on the heqdjn separate tufts, and is
spread out, when long, in a sthick bushy^periwig, forming
what the French voyagers.,term M une crinière volumineuse.”
I am in doubt whether these , races ought ip reality to be
distinguished on the ground of this difference in their hair,
Mr.. Earle, who has had more ^ esfeuiive jplp^pnrse with
them, and perhaps greater opportunities çf-çorreçt observation
among several of these tribes than any European before
possessed, ..is of opinion that the hair in all, thçse tribes is
similar as to its original growth, and that , tbosp who
appear Lo b a » their heads epyered only , with a short or
close wobL-like growth, would ljavg,, locks equally long
and bushy with the Papuas if they,only, like the latter
people^, suffered, their hair.Jto grow to^jts,sutmost|dength, and
.then dressed it like ,the .Papua^,. who are^in thq, habit of
,;4 6fiMog*i|..<out. with grease* Whether . thi§ observation
applies to the puny bl^çk i;acp. of the ^Philippine, Islands
described .recently by Lafpnd, .and^o/ whom^ac^ounts had
previously been given b.y Spanish, , French, and' Italian
writers;* I cannot determine. At a.py rate the diffidence of
stature and features between these short; and puny people pf
the Indian Archipelago and the tall, botU^np^ed, mop-headed
Papuas of Dampier, is perhaps a sufficient ground £pj describing
them under two sections,;
Perhaps the . greater number of black races in Oceanic
Negroland are in many respects intermediate .between^tjipse
two extremes, and approach more nearly to the ordinary
character of the African Npgro. We shall eoffect further
accounts of the physical characters of these nations.
3. Races with straight hair. The Australasians belong to
this department. The Paraferas or Alforian tribes, asthey
are described by French writes in New guinea us forming
* In the second edition of jny Researches the accounts given of this pice
by several old writers were cited. T ip | 'agreàwilh those of .M. Lafond.