& 



98 HOEATIO HALE ON LANGUAGE 



"Wellington valley, two hundred miles west of Mr. Threlkeld's station, showed that the 

 construction of the language remained substantially the same, but the forms were, in 

 general, fewer and less complex. Several cases of nouns had been lost, and the verbal 

 derivatives were less numerous. According to Dr. Millier, this grammatical decay con- 

 tinues to the west coast, where the languages, though retaining the pronouns and other 

 words indicating their original affinity, have become in a large degree formless. This fact 

 will be found significant as we proceed. 



It becomes a matter of great interest to determine the true character and the ethno- 

 logical affinities of the people speaking this remarkable group of languages. The first 

 observation to be made is that there is something enigmatical, at the first view, both in 

 their physical appearance and in their intellectual manifestations. The former, as 

 described in my notes made on the spot, combines the peculiarities which anthropolo- 

 gists have been accustomed to ascribe to totally distinct races : ' " They are of middle 

 height, with forms fairly well proportioned. The cast of the face is a medium between 

 the African and the Malay types. The forehead is narrow, sometimes retreating, but 

 often high and prominent ; the eyes are small, black, and deep-set ; the nose is much 

 depressed at the upper part between the eyes, and widened at the base, but, with this, it 

 frequently has an aquiline outline. The cheekbones are prominent. The mouth is 

 large, with thick lips and strong well-set teeth. The jaws project, but the chin is fre- 

 quently retracted. The head, which is very large, with a skull of unusual thickness, is 

 placed upon a short and small neck. Their colour is a dark chocolate, or reddish black, 

 like that of the Gruinea negro, but varying in shade so much that individuals of pure 

 blood are sometimes as light-coloured as mulattoes. That which distinguishes them most 

 decidedly from other dark-skinned races is their hair, tuhich is neillier ivoolly, like that of the 

 Africans and Melanesians, nor frizzled like that of the Feejeans, nor coarse, stiff, and 

 curling, as with the Malays. Il is long, fine, and wavy, like that of Europeans. " "When 

 neglected, it is apt, of course, to become bushy and matted, but when proper care is taken 

 of it, it appears as we have described. It is sometimes of a glossy black, but the most 

 common hue is a deep brown. Most of the men have thick beards, and their skins are 

 more hairy than those of whites." 



The like perplexing contradictions appeared in their intellectual and moral traits. 

 The same notes state the opinion then formed, — that " it is doubtful what grade of intel- 

 lectual capacity is to be ascribed to this people." "While, on the one hand, " the impres- 

 sion x^roduced on the mind of a stranger by an intercourse with the aborigines in their 

 natural state is that of great mental obtuseness, or, in plain terms, an almost brutal 

 stupidity," it is noted that " several who have been taken from the forest when young 



1 U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. 7 : "Ethnology and Phiilology," p. 107. 



- I have italicized some words, not merely to draw attention to the important fact mentioned, but also to cor- 

 rect an unaccountable error of my learned friend, Dr. Gerland, who in his continuation of Waitz's great work 

 (Anthropologie der Naturv'olkcr) quotes from my volume, with some abridgment, the foregoing description of the 

 Australian people, generally in a correct manner, but making me say of the liair, " it is long, fine and uoolbj !" Dr. 

 E. Millier, naturally startled by this extraordinary statement (which would be much like a description of the 

 Eskimo as having black skins), has in his Allgemeine Ethnographie (2nd edit., p. 205) devoted a long footnote to the 

 correction of my supposed error. He evidently had not at tlie time seen my volume, which was thus strangely 

 misquoted, and of which in his later master-work, the " Grundriss der Hpi'achwisscnscliafi," he has made consider- 

 able and always accurate use. 



