4GG THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE AUSTRALIAN RACE. 



Physical Conformation of the Australians — Their Low State of Civilisation — 

 Their Superstitions — Their Wars — Singing and Dancing — The Corribory — 

 Division of the Nation into Great Families — Rules regulating the Property of 

 Land and the Distribution of Pood — Skill in Hunting the Kangaroo and the 

 Opossum — Pea-sting on a Whale — Moral Qualities and Intelligence of the 

 Australians. 



ON turning from the Malayan Archipelago and New Guinea, 

 to the wilds of northern Australia, new aspects of savage 

 life rise before our view. With new plants and new animals, 

 a new variety of the human race makes its appearance, differing 

 in figure, in physiognomy, in language, and in many of its customs 

 and manners both from the Malay and the Papuan : a race 

 which, though occupying one of the lowest grades in the scale of 

 humanity, still offers many points of interest to the observer, 

 and claims our attention both by its qualities and its de- 

 fects. 



The figure of the Australians is remarkable for spareness and 

 lankness about the lower extremities, the hips and thighs as 

 well as the calves of the legs, observable in the females as well 

 as in the men. Their heads are in general large, with very 

 projecting eyebrows and deep-set eyes, the nose broad, the 

 mouth wide ; and there is very often a ferocious look which is 

 not in accordance with the character of the individual. The 

 hair is .often matted and twisted with filth and grease into 

 different fashions ; when clean, however, it is frequently as 

 fine and glossy as that of the European. Its colour is in some 

 of the children of a sunburnt brown, but invariably black among 

 the adults. In their skins they vary from a dark chocolate- 

 brown to an almost perfect black. Their hands and feet are 



