404 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



Malayan Archipelago, such as the Timorese, the moun- 

 taineers of Ceram and Gilolo, and of the small islands near 

 New Guinea ; and this mistake has been rendered excusable 

 by the number of half-breeds between the two races to be 

 found everywhere. Many of these people are, perhaps, 

 allied to the Polynesians, but they are certainly not Malays, 

 who are essentially a Mongol race, with many of the 

 Mongol characteristics strongly marked. The Papuans of 

 New Guinea form the extreme type of another and a 

 widely different race, and all the evidence goes to show 

 that in every characteristic except colour, the Polynesians 

 are somewhat nearer to the Papuans than they are to the 

 Malays, but that they are fundamentally distinct from 

 both of them. 



Modern Views as to the Affinities of the Polynesians. 



Since the preceding pages were written, more than 

 thirty years ago, a great advance has been made in our 

 knowledge of the true affinities of the Mahoris or brown 

 Polynesians. The supposed close relationship of their 

 languages to the Malay has been shown to be an error, 

 since they differ fundamentally both in phonetics and in 

 grammatical structure. The Malayan words in the 

 Mahori languages, once thought to be so important, have 

 been shown to be not more than about four per cent, of 

 the whole, and they belong mostly to the actual spoken 

 languages of the western Malays and Javanese, not to 

 those of the more eastern tribes in the Moluccas or the 

 Philippines. This is easily explained by the fact of the 

 two former languages being those of the wandering traders 

 of the Archipelago, who would be most likely to come in 

 contact with the Mahoris and thus introduce some words 

 of their language. 



Another factor of great importance which has led to a 

 more accurate perception of the resemblances or differences 

 of the races of distant lands, has been the great spread of 

 photography during the last twenty or thirty years. So 

 long as we were dependent on the hand-work of artists of 

 every degree of talent, and often with such an amount of 



