PECULIARITIES OF THE PAPUANS. 2?5 



at last appeared so miserable^ beino^ actually in 

 tears^ that a boat was sent to put him on shore 

 abreast of the ship, and, when he landed, two young- 

 women and a child came running* up to meet him. 

 A number of natives on the sandy beach were anxi- 

 ously watching- the boat, as if the long- detention of 

 the man on board the ship had made them suspicious 

 of our treatment of him. 



Without entering- into details of uninteresting- 

 daily occurrences^ I may here give a g-eneral ac- 

 count of such circumstances re^-ardino* the natives 

 as have not previously been alluded to or insuffi- 

 ciently described. It would be difficult to state 

 the peculiarities of this portion of the Papuan* Race 

 (including- also the inhabitants of the Louisiade) for 

 even the features exhibit nearly as many differences 

 as exist among- a miscellaneous collection of indi- 

 viduals of any European nation. They appear to 

 me to be resolvable into several indistinct types, 

 with intermediate g-radations ; thus occasionally we 

 met with strong-ly marked Neg-ro characteristics, but 

 still more frequently with the JcAvish cast of features, 

 while every now and then a face presented itself 

 which struck me as being- perfectly Malayan. In 

 g-eneral the head is narrow in front, and wide and 



* As the term Papuan when appHed to a Race of Mankind is 

 not strictly correct, I may here mention that whenever used in this 

 work, it includes merely the woolly or frizzled haired inhabitants 

 of the Louisiade, S.E. coast of New Guinea, and the islands of 

 Towes Strait. 



T 2 



