220 Leading Characteristics of the Papuan. 
tains the “ Aurea Chersonesus,” and the “ Jabados Insulew,” (sup- 
posed to have meant respectively the Malayu Peninsula, or Sumatra 
and the Java Islands), he places a country far to the eastward of the 
Aurea Chersonesus, under the equinoctial line, which he states to be 
occupied by ‘* Athiopes Ichthyophagi,” or ‘“ Negro fish-eaters ;”’ 
the first term being that employed by the Romans to distinguish the 
black and woolly-haired Africans from the Mauritani and other 
brown races of the coast; and the second, that usually applied to all 
nations who derived a portion of their subsistence from the sea.* 
The position of this country, with regard to the Aurea Chersonesus, 
agrees well with that of New Guinea, the great seat of the Papuan 
race. The existence of a Negro people, at so remote a spot, which 
he must have learned from the information of Indian navigators, 
seems, indeed, to have led Ptolemy into the great error of his sys- 
tem ; for, believing that the country of the “ AXthiopes Ichthyophagi’”’ 
formed part of the Continent of Asia, he has made that continent, in 
his general map of the world, come round by the south and join the 
African Continent about Point Prassum, in lat. 15° south (the then 
southern known limit of the east coast of Africa), thus making the In- 
dian Ocean, and the seas of the Eastern Archipelago, form one vast 
Inland Sea. 
The most striking peculiarity of the Oriental Negroes consists in 
their frizzled or woolly hair. This, however, does not spread over 
the surface of the head, as is usual with the Negroes of Western 
Africa, but grows in small tufts, the hairs which form each tuft 
keeping separate from the rest, and twisting round each other, until, 
if allowed to grow, they form a spiral ringlet. Many of the tribes, 
especially those who occupy the interior parts of islands whose coasts 
are occupied by more civilized races, from whom cutting instruments 
can be obtained, keep the hair closely cropped. The tufts then 
assume the form of little knobs, about the size of a large pea, giving 
the head a very singular appearance, which has, not inaptly, been 
compared with that of an old worn-out shoe-brush. Others again, 
more especially the natives of the south coast of New Guinea, 
and the Islands of Torres Strait, troubled with such an obstinate 
description of hair, yet admiring the ringlets as a head-dress, cut 
them off and twist them into skull-caps made of matting, thus form- 
ing very compact wigs. But it is among the natives of the north 
coast of New Guinea, and some of the adjacent islands of the Pacific, 
Mt lg Pay 
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* The system of naming nations from the food which formed their chief 
means of support, seems to have been very prevalent among the ancients; wit- 
ness “ Hippophagi,” the horse-eating (Tartars), “ Lotophagi,” lotus-eaters, &c. 
This system, although not to be recommended at the present) day; has proved 
highly useful, for these names are sometimes found to contain the only existing 
description of the habits of the people on whom they were conferred, as in the 
present instance. Dr Leichardt, in his late overland journey from “Sydney 
to Port-Hssington, found some tribes of genuine Liotophagi on the lagoons and 
table-land, as will come to be noticed below. roiiet 
