The Alfuros or Indigenes. 323 



and there were clumps of fruit-trees, patches of low wood, and 

 abundance of plantations and rice-grounrls, all of which are, in 

 trojDical regions, a very desert for the entomologist. The vir- 

 gin forest that I was in search of existed only on the summits 

 and on the steep rocky sides of the mountains a long way off, 

 and in inaccessible situations. In the subui-bs of the village I 

 found a fair number of bees and wasps, and some small but in- 

 teresting beetles. Two or three new birds Avere obtained by my 

 hunters, and by incessant inquiries and promises I succeeded 

 in getting the natives to bring me some land shells, among 

 which was a very fine and handsome one (Helix pyrostoma). 

 I was, however, completely wasting my time here, compared 

 with what I might be doing in a good locality, and after a 

 week returned to Ternate, quite disappointed with my first at- 

 tempts at collecting in Gilolo. 



In the country round about Sahoe and in the interior there 

 is a large population of indigenes, numbers of whom came 

 daily into the village, bringing their produce for sale, while 

 others were engaged as- laborers by the Chinese and Ternate 

 traders. A careful examination convinced me that these peo- 

 ple are radically distinct from all the Malay races. Their 

 stature and their features, as well as their disposition and 

 habits, are almost the same as those of the Papuans ; their 

 hair is semi-Papuan — neither straight, smooth, and glossy like 

 all true Malays', nor so frizzly and woolly as the perfect Pa- 

 puan type, but always crisp, waved, and rough, such as often 

 occurs among the true Papuans, but never among the Malays. 

 Their color alone is often exactly that of the Malay, or even 

 lighter. Of course there has been intermixture, and there oc- 

 cur occasionally individuals which it is difficult to classify ; 

 but in most cases the large, somewhat aquiline nose, with 

 elongated apex, the tall stature, the waved hair, the bearded 

 face, and hairy body, as well as the less reserved manner and 

 loiader voice, unmistakably proclaim the Papuan type. Here 

 then I had discovered the exact boundary-line between the Malay 

 and Papuan races, and at a spot where no other writer had ex- 

 pected it. I was very much pleased at this determination, as 

 it gave me a clue to one of the most difficult problems in eth- 

 nology, and enabled me in many other places to separate the 

 two races, and to unravel their intermixtures. 



