AUSTRALIA AUSTRIA. 



345 



one somewhat different from the Europeans in appear- 

 ance, and belonging to the Malay race. From the 

 union of the two principal varieties several interme- 

 diate ones arise. The Papuas inhabit New Holland, 

 New Guinea, Louisiade, the Solomon islands, New 

 Hebrides, New Britain, and New Caledonia ; and, in 

 New Holland particularly, they have projecting lips 

 and woolly hair, like all other negroes, from whom 

 they are distinguished by very thin, lean arms and 

 legs. This race, in cultivation, is far below the other 

 race, the Malays, especially in New Holland, where 

 they have very disgusting and ape-like features, stand 

 on the lowest step of bodily and mental improvement, 

 and live in a savage state, without laws, and without 

 religion. Their great mouths, and thick, projecting 

 lips, jut out somewhat like a snout, and their little, 

 flat noses are lost behind them. Their deep sunk 

 yes betray a rude and malicious spirit, and sometimes, 

 though rarely, a stupid good humour. They are 

 naked, or slightly clothed in the skins of beasts, 

 live on fish, or the fruits of trees, or on the flesh of 

 the kangaroos, which they find no difficulty in catch- 

 ing, and devour every thing almost raw ; they hardly 

 pull the feathers from birds before they consume them. 

 The inhabitants of New Caledonia and the New He- 

 brides, who are also regarded as Papuas, eat the 

 flesh of their enemies, when they have killed them, 

 though they have fields covered with bananas, yams, 

 and arum. The pure Malay race, who inhabit the 

 Australian islands, i. e. the Friendly, Society, and 

 Sandwich islands, are distinguished for the most 

 beautiful and regular forms of which humanity is ca- 

 pable. Their complexion is sometimes not darker than 

 that of the Spaniards and Italians, and some of the wo- 

 men are as white as the most beautiful Europeans. In 

 general, these islanders seem to be good-natured, 

 sociable, gentle, happy, and gay. Travellers, how- 

 ever, agree in this, that they have a strong propensity 

 to steal, and give up their wives and daughters to the 

 Europeans without restraint. Among some of them, 

 the shocking custom of eating human flesh, and offer- 

 ing human sacrifices, still prevails. They live in vil- 

 lages, where there are even some public buildings to 

 be found. They make boats ornamented with carved 

 work, tools, furniture, and weapons of stone and wood, 

 which, considering their means, are very remarkable. 

 They make nets, baskets, cords, very fine mats, and 

 cloth for their dress, which they know how to dye ex- 

 quisitely. They carry on a sort of agriculture, which 

 consists principally in the cultivation of arum, yams, 

 and potatoes, and live in a civil union, of which the 

 foundation is a sort of feudal system. They worship 

 a supreme and inferior gods ; they have priests 

 and sacrifices, and entertain hopes of sensual in- 

 dulgences in another life. Their morais, or build- 

 ings for the dead, are commonly places where the 

 worship of their gods is performed. But the mis- 

 sionaries have now spread the Christian religion 

 in the Society and Sandwich islands, and put an 

 end to the ancient superstitions. Among all these 

 islanders, the inhabitants of the Sandwich islands 

 have made the greatest progress, through their 

 acquaintance with the Europeans. Besides these 

 original inhabitants of A., there are also some Euro- 

 peans ; a few in the Sandwich islands ; upwards 

 of 50,000 in the colony established by the British on 

 the eastern shore of New Holland, and a less number 

 in Van Diemen's Land. In 1824, Great Britain took 

 possession of all the islands and tracts of land in A., 

 lying between 111 E. and 153 W. Ion., besides 

 Apsley and Clarence straits, and port Essington, on 

 the peninsula of Coburg. The principal parts of A., 

 besides several smaller islands lying separately, are 

 New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, New Guinea, 

 the Admiralty islands, New Britain, Solomon is\es, 



Queen Charlotte's islands, or the archipelago of 

 Santa Cruz, New Hebrides, or Terra del Santo 

 Espiritu, New Caledonia, New Zealand, the Pelew, 

 Caroline, or New Philippine islands, Marian, or La- 

 drone, Monteverdos, Mulgrave, Fisher, Friendly, 

 Bligh's, Navigator's, Society, Marquesas, Washing- 

 ton's, and Sandwich islands. (See King's Survey of 

 the Coasts of Australia, London, 1827, and Cunning- 

 ham's Two Years in New South Wales, 3d edit., Lond., 

 1 828; also, Statistical Account of the British Settlements 

 in Australasia, &c., 3d edit., London, 1825, 2 vols. 



AUSTRIA (in German, (Estretch, i. e. East-empir**- 

 The population of this empire is composed of GIT- 

 mans, Sclavonians, Magyars, (by which nanu the 

 Hungarians call themselves) and Italians. Its cnuUe 

 was the territory below the Ens. In the time of 

 Charlemagne, about 800, the margraviate of A. 

 was formed by a body of militia, which protected the 

 south-east of Germany from the incursions of the 

 Asiatic tribes. In 1156, it was united with the 

 territory above the Ens, and made a duchy. In 1282, 

 the state began to increase under the dominion of 

 the house of Hapsburg. (q. v.) This dynasty soon 

 added several new territories, which afterwards 

 formed the Austrian circle, and, in 1438, obtained 

 the electoral crown of the German emperors. In 

 1453, A. was raised to an archduchy, and, having 

 acquired Bohemia and Hungary in 1526, with the 

 consent of the inhabitants, it attained the rank of a 

 European monarchy. The Lorraine branch of the 

 house of Austria maintained this rank at the peace 

 of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in the year 1748. They 

 confirmed the union of their territories by elevating 

 the monarchy, in 1804, to an hereditary empire, and 

 established its dignity as .one of the chief powers in 

 Europe, before, during, and after the congress of 

 Vienna, in 1815. 



Ancient History of the Country till the year 982. 

 After the Romans had vanquished the Noricaris, 

 A. D. 33, and gained possession of the Danube, the 

 country north of the Danube, extending to the borders 

 of Bohemia and Moravia, belonged to the kingdom 

 of the Marcomanni and Quadi ; a part of Lower 

 Austria and Stiria, with Vienna (Vindobona), a 

 municipal city of the Roman empire, belonged to 

 Upper Pannonia ; the rest of the country, with 

 Carinthia and a part of Carniola, formed a portion of 

 Noricum. Gorz belonged to the Roman province 

 of Illyricum, and Tyrol to Rhaetia. These limits 

 became confused by the irruptions of the barbarians. 

 The Boii, Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, Goths, Huns, 

 Lombards, and Avars, in the course of the 5th and 

 6th centuries, successively occupied the country. 

 But after the year 568, when the Lombards had 

 established their power in Upper Italy, the river 

 Ens formed the boundary line between the German 

 tribe of Bajuvarii, the proprietors of the territory 

 above the Ens and the Avars, who had removed 

 from the East to the banks of that stream. In 61 1, 

 the Wendi, a Sclavonic tribe, appeared on the. Murr, 

 Drave, and Save. In 788, the duchy of Bavaria was 

 dissolved, and the Avars passed over the Ens, and 

 invaded the counties of the Franks in the Bavarian 

 territory. In 791, Charlemagne forced them to re- 

 tire to the Raab, and united the territory extending 

 from the Ens to the junction of the Raab with the 

 Danube (the territory below the Ens) with Germany, 

 under the name of Avaria, or Eastern Marchia 

 (Marchia Orientalis), or Austria; and, in the 10th 

 century (in a document of Otho III., 996), it was 

 called Ostirrichi, or (Eslreich, the German name for 

 Austria. Many colonists, particularly from Bavaria, 

 were sent by Charlemagne into the new province, 

 and a margrave was appointed to administer the 

 government. The archbishop of Salzburg was at 



