6 HYBRIDITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



and described " the real and undoubted hybrids" of the Papuans 

 and Malays, and that these are altogether different from the 

 mop-headed Papuans. 1 



It will be perceived that the example of the Papuans is a 

 worse selection than that of the Griquas, since it is very pro- 

 bable that these mop-headed men, the type of which was so per- 

 fectly described by Dampier two centuries ago, having been 

 since preserved without alteration, are a pure race. Granting 

 even that it is demonstrated that they belong to a hybrid race, 

 they can scarcely be cited as a mixed race persisting by them- 

 selves, since, so far from living secluded from the two races 

 from which they are said to be the issue, they live with them in 

 the same localities. MM. Quoy and Gaimard, in their descrip- 

 tion of these pretended mongrels, add that there were Negroes 

 among them (by which name they designate the Papuans proper) 

 which formed a part of the tribe which visited us daily. There 

 were even among them two individuals of a higher complexion, 

 which, rightly or wrongly, were considered to be descended 

 from Europeans or Chinese. It was thus a very mixed people. 

 Mr. Lesson, speaking of the population of the small island of 

 Waigiou, 2 says that two races are found there, the Malays and 

 the Alfourous, besides the hybrid races of the Papuans : ' ' These 

 are men without vigour or moral energy, subjected to the 

 authority of the Malay rajahs, and frequently reduced to 

 slavery by the surrounding islanders." 3 But it is well known 

 what is the consequence of slavery, especially under an equa- 

 torial climate, and among a people given to incontinency. It 

 is, then, simply impossible that the mop-headed race of the 

 Isle of Waigiou should remain free from intermixture with the 



1 Latham, The Natural History of the Varieties of Man, p. 213. London, 1850. 

 Dr. Latham designates the Malays by the somewhat fantastic name of Pro- 

 tonesians. There are a great number of neologisms of this kind in his work. 



2 Some geographers say that Waigiou is a large island ; but they give no 

 dimensions. It is, however, scarcely as large as the Island of Majorca. It is 

 of an irregular form, long and narrow ; it is about 80 leagues in circumference 

 (Dumont d'Urville in Kienzi, I' Oceanic). It is only 25 leagues long and 10 

 leagues broad, says llenricy (Histoire dc V Oceanic. Paris, 1845.) The Island 

 of Majorca is only 22 leagues in length by 10 leagues in breadth. Three 

 races united in such a small territory, cannot long remain strangers to each 

 other. 



3 Lesson, loc. cit. t. ii. p. 19. 



