THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 19 



that we may estimate that in ten days a man may produce food 

 for the whole year. This is on the supposition that he possesses 

 sago trees of his own, for they are now all private property. If 

 he does not he has to pay about two dollars for one ; and as labor 

 here is ten cents a day, the total cost of a year's food for one 

 man is about three dollars. The effect of this cheapness of food 

 is decidedly prejudicial, for the inhabitants of the sago country 

 are never so well off as those where rice is cultivated. Many of 

 these people have neither vegetables nor fruit, but live almost 

 entirely on sago and a little fish. Having few occupations, at 

 home, they wander about on petty trading or fishing expeditions 

 to the neighboring islands ; and as far as the comforts of life are 

 concerned, are much inferior to the wild Hill Dyaks of Borneo, 

 or to many of the more barbarous tribes of the Archipelago. 



THE PAPUAX PEOPLE. 



As Wallace extended his journey eastward, he found the peo- 

 ple in feature and habit greatly changed, and that the birds wore 

 more beautiful plumage. At the Abu Islands, near New Guinea, 

 he met the original Papuans, who compose one of the most dis- 

 tinct and strongly marked races of the earth. They are intensely 

 black, but with this exception they very little resemble negroes, 

 for all their features, except the nose, which is aquiline with large 

 nostrils, greatly resemble the Caucasian. They have no idea of 

 a hereafter, profess no kind of religion, are not even superstitious, 

 have no laws, and yet they are an apparently happy and con- 

 tented people, free from vice. They recognize only the relation- 

 ship which commerce gives, and therefore the importance of pre- 

 serving peace and practicing honesty. Concerning these people, 

 Mr. "Wallace writes : 



"Here, as among most savage people with whom I have dwelt, 

 I was delighted with the beauty of the human form a beauty of 

 which stay-at-home civilized people can carcely have any con- 

 ception. What are the finest Grecian statues to the living, mov- 

 ing, breathing men I saw daily around me? The unrestrained 

 grace of the naked savage as he goes about his daily occupations, 

 or lounges at his ease, must be seen to be understood ; and a 



