20 JOHN READE OîC 



frothy silk crêpe and rich brocaded silk, made up— a medley irresistibly fosciuatiug to the 

 stranger.'" Such is Singapore, and not far off is Malacca, one of the oldest European towns 

 in the East, originally Portuguese, then Dutch, and now, though nominally under Eng- 

 lish rule, practically a Chinese colony. Not less striking is Mr. Forbes's sketch of a street- 

 scene in the capital of Portuguese Timor : " Tall, erect indigenes mingle with negroes 

 from the Portuguese possession of Mozambique and the coasts of Africa, most of them here 

 in the capacity of soldiers or condemned criminals ; tall, lithe East Indians from Groa and 

 its neighbourhood ; Chinese and Bugis of Macassar, with Aral)s and Malays and natives from 

 Allor, Savu, Roti and Flores; besides a crowd in whose veins the degree of commingled- 

 ness of blood of all these races would defy the acutest computation."- The Timorese 

 themselves represent the Malay, the Papuan, and the Polynesian races. But they, also, 

 offer exceptions which cannot fail to strike the beholder with wonder. For instance, 

 the same author writes : " While in the act of turning from watching this human hunt to 

 continue my journey, my eye lighted on an object that riveted my interest more than all 

 else among those savage marketers — a red-haired youth, first one, then a few others, some 

 with straight, some with curly hair, with red eye-lashes, blue eyes, and the hair over their 

 body also reddish. I found, on inquiry, that a little colony of them, well known for their 

 peculiar colour of hair and eyes, lived at Aitùha, at no great distance off. Though they 

 lived in a colony together, they were not shunned by their neighbours, Avhp even inter- 

 married with them. The offspring of these unions took sometimes after the one, sometimes 

 after the other parent. In looking eagerly at their faces, I saw more than their features 

 only ; their presence there was an excerpt out of a long history. In imagination I saw past 

 them down the dim avenues of Time — a far, far cry — to their early progenitors, and pic- 

 tured their weary retreat, full of strange and romantic vicissitudes from a more northern 

 clime, till forced off the mainland by superior might into exile in this remote isle, where 

 as a surviving remnant amid' its central heights, they are living united but not incorpor- 

 ated with the surrounding race whose pedigree has no link in common with their own.'" 

 Space will not permit me to more than allude to the race-mixtures of Ilindostan and 

 its border lands, of the Afghan frontier uplands, where Mongoloid and Caucasian still con- 

 tend for the mastery,* of the important region once swayed by the sceptre of Darius, of 

 the lands of the Siiltan, of the many-tongued realm of the Czar and the long, deep range 

 of Arab conquest in Africa. Of what blood-fusion did for that part of the world, 

 the broad seat of successiA^e empires in the distant past, I have already spoken. And the 

 transformation is still going on. The sons of Joktan and Ishmael, with the Koran in their 

 hands, have been trying for ages to convert the dark tribes of Africa to the creed of the 

 Moslem, and, in preaching their gospel, they have not disdained to share their ancient 

 lineage with their dusky disciples. Arabic scholars have, by the cruel fortunes of the slave- 

 hunt, found themselves enthralled to Brazilian half-breeds, their protests availing nothing 

 a"-ainst the evidence of their skins. "Whether the crusade inaugurated and sanctioned by 



1 Isabella Bird in the Leisure Hour. ^ A NaUiralist's Wanderings, etc., p. 418. ■' BAd., pp. 464, C5. 



* Mr. A. H. Keane (Nalure, Jan. 8, 1885) divides the North- Afghan tribes into Caucasie and Mongolie; and 

 again the former, into Gulchas and Iranians, and tlie latter into Mongols and Tartars. The Galchas are subdivided 

 into Siali-Posh, Badakshi, Wakhi and Shugnaris ; the Iranians, into Kohistani, Firuz-Khoi, Jemshidi, Tajiks and 

 Afghans. Tlie Mongols are. composed of Hazarahs and Airnaks, and tlio Tartars, of Sakir-Turkomans and Kata- 

 ghani Usbegs. Tlie Caucasians number something over a million, and the Mongols over a million and a quarter. 



