146 CRITIQUES AND ADDEESSES. [vn. 



hair occupy New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the 

 Louisiade Archipelago ; and stretching to the Papuan 

 Islands, and for a doubtful extent beyond them to the 

 north and west, form a sort of belt, or zone, of Negrito 

 population, interposed between the Australians on the 

 west and the inhabitants of the great majority of the 

 Pacific islands on the east. 



The cranial characters of the Negritos vary consider 

 ably more than those of their skin and hair, the most 

 notable circumstance being the strong Australian aspect 

 which distinguishes many Negrito skulls, while others 

 tend rather towards forms common in the Polynesian 

 islands. 



In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an advance 

 upon Tasmania, and, farther north, there is a still greater 

 improvement. But the bows and arrows, the perched 

 houses, the outrigger canoes, the habits of betel-chewing 

 and of kawa- drinking, which abound more or less among 

 the northern Negritos, are probably to be regarded not 

 as the products of an indigenous civilization, but merely 

 as indications of the extent to which foreign influences 

 have modified the primitive social state of these people. 



From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New Zealand or 

 Tongataboo, is again but a brief voyage ; but it brings 

 about a still more notable change in the aspect of the 

 indigenous population than that effected by the passage 

 of Bass s Straits. Instead of being chocolate-coloured 

 people, the Maories and Tongans are light brown ; instead 

 of woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair. And 

 if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000 miles cast to 

 Easter Island ; and from Easter Island, for as great a 

 distance north-west, to the Sandwich Islands ; and thence 

 7,000 miles, westward and southward, to Sumatra ; and 

 even across the Indian Ocean, into the interior of Mada 

 gascar, we shall everywhere meet with people whose hair 



