l-'O PHYSICAL CHARACTEKS. 



that the darker-skinned natives occur in the western islands of the 

 group, such as New Georgia, Bougainville Straits, and Bougainville; 

 whilst the lighter-coloured natives are more restricted to the eastern 

 islands such as St. Christoval, Guadalcanar, &c. In different parts 

 of the Solomon Group, the colour of the skin, as may have been 

 already inferred, varies considerably in shade from a very deep 

 brown, exemplified by colour-t^^pe 42 of M. Broca, to a copperish 

 hue, best typefied by colour-type 29. The prevailing darker hue of 

 the western islands is represented by type 42, and the prevailing 

 lighter hue of the eastern islands by type o5. Where there is no 

 means of comparison, the darker hues of the skin might be called 

 black. The lightest hues, such as would appear to characterise 

 natives in isolated localities, as in Santa Catalina, and on the north 

 coast of Guadalcanar opposite the Rua Sura Islets, would be best 

 exemplified by colour-type 28. The elderly natives are, as a rule, 

 more dark-skinned than those of younger years, the difierence in 

 shade being attributable partly to a longer exposure by reason of 

 their age to the influence of sun and weather, and partly to those 

 structural changes in the skin which accompany advancing years. 

 The colour is usually fairly uniform over the person, but in the case 

 of the Malaita natives, before referred to, the colour of the face 

 and chest was of a lighter hue than that of the limbs and body, as 

 exem]-»lified by contrasting the colour-types 28 and 35.^ 



I would draw attention to the circumstance that m^^ observa- 

 tions were confined to the coast tribes of these islands. The larger 

 islands, which may be compared in size to the county of Cornwall, 

 are but thinly populated in their interior by tribes of more puny 

 physique and less enterprising character, who are ill-suited to cope 

 with their more robust and more war-like fellow-islande^^s of the coast. 

 These " bushmen," as they are called, are accredited by the coast- 

 natives with inferior mental capabilities as compared with their 

 own. To call a man of the coast a " bush man " is equivalent to 

 calling him a stupid or a fool, a taunt which is commonly employed 

 amongst the coast-natives. The stone adzes and axes, which have 

 been discarded by the inhabitants of the coast, are said to be still 

 employed by the bushmen^^ I was unable to make any measure- 

 ments of these natives ; but those I saw were usually of short 

 stature and of a more excitable and suspicious temperament. The 



1 Vide pago for remarks on the effect of the prevailing skin-disease, an inveterate form of 

 boily-iingworm, on thQ colour of the skin. 



