PRINCIPAL FAMILIES OF MANKIND. 1053 



the more powerful people of the preceding races, who have either extirpated 

 them altogether, or have driven them from the coasts into the mountainous and 

 desert parts of the interior. They are yet to be found in the central parts of 

 the Moluccas and Philippines ; and they seem to occupy most of the interior 

 and southern portions of New Guinea, where they are termed Endamenes. 

 They are of very dark complexion ; but their hair, though black and thick, is 

 lank. They have a peculiarly repulsive physiognomy ; the nose is flattened, so 

 as to give the nostrils an almost transverse position; the cheek-bones project; 

 the eyes are large, the teeth prominent, the lips thick, and the mouth wide. 

 The limbs are long, slender, and misshapen. From the close resemblance in 

 physical characters between the Endamenes of New Guinea and the aborigines 

 of New Holland, and from the proximity between the adjacent coasts of these two 

 islands, it may be surmised that the latter belong to the Alforian race ; but too 

 little is known of the language of either to give this inference a sufficient sta- 

 bility. In the degradation of their condition and manner of life, the savages 

 of New Holland fully equal the Bushmen of South Africa; and it is scarcely 

 possible to imagine human beings existing in a condition more nearly resem- 

 bling that of brutes. But there is reason to believe that the tribes in closest 

 contact with European settlers are more miserable and savage than those of the 

 interior; and even with respect to these, increasing acquaintance with their lan- 

 guage, and a consequent improved insight into their modes of thought, tend to 

 raise the very low estimate which had been formed and long maintained in re- 

 gard to their extreme mental degradation. The latest and most authentic state- 

 ments enable us to recognize among them the. same principles of a moral and 

 intellectual nature, which, in more cultivated tribes, constitute the highest en- 

 dowments of humanity; and thus to show that they are not separated, by any 

 impassable barrier, from the most civilized and elevated nations of the globe. 

 There are many indications, indeed, that the Negrito race is not so radically dis- 

 tinct from the Malayo-Polynesian, as the marked physical dissimilarity of their 

 respective types, and the apparent want of conformity between their languages, 

 would make it appear. For as, on the one hand, some of the subdivisions of 

 the latter present a decided tendency towards that prognathous character and 

 depth of complexion which are typical of the former, so among the former do 

 we not unfrequently meet with a lighter shade of skin, a greater symmetry of 

 skull, and a considerable improvement in form and feature. And although no 

 very close relationship can be discovered between the Negrito and Malayo-Poly- 

 nesian languages, yet it has been pointed out by Mr. Norris that a much more 

 decided relationship exists between the Australian and Tamulian ( 1054); and 

 remote as this connection seems, the circumstance adds weight to the idea that 

 the native Australians (with other Negrito tribes) are an offset from that south- 

 ern branch of the great nomadic stock of Central Asia which seems early to 

 have spread itself through the Indo-Chinese and the Indian Peninsulas, and to 

 have even there shown an approximation to the prognathous type. 



1063. Looking, then, to the great diversity which exists among the subordi- 

 nate groups of which both these divisions consist, and their tendency to mutual 

 approximation, it cannot be shown that any sufficient reason exists for isolating 

 them from each other ; and, as already remarked, there seems no medium be- 

 tween the supposition that each island had its aboriginal pair or pairs, and the 

 doctrine that the whole of Oceania has been peopled from a common stock. 

 Looking, again, to the very marked approximation which is presented by certain 

 Oceanic tribes to the Mongolian type, and this in a locality which, on other 

 grounds, might be regarded as having received the first stream of migration, 

 the possibility, to say the least, can scarcely be denied, that the mainland fur- 

 nished the original stock, which has undergone various transformations subse- 

 quently to its first dispersion ; these having been the result of climatic influence 



