490 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



of Papuan or Malayan race, among whom the primitive 

 Caucasians could have settled ; and, if they ultimately 

 passed on eastward, they would certainly have carried 

 with them some indication of such a residence in 

 their language, in the use of the bow-and-arrow, and in the 

 art of making pottery. The deficiency of the whole of the 

 Mahoris in this latter particular is well explained by the 

 theory of their migration step by step through Micronesia 

 from the coasts of Japan or China. In these small islands, 

 mostly of coral with occasionally some basaltic rock, the 

 materials for making pottery would rarely exist, even if 

 among the immigrants there were any persons who knew 

 how to make it. And as it might be a dozen generations, or 

 even much more, before their descendants reached such 

 large islands as those of the Tonga or Samoa groups, all idea 

 of such utensils would have long died out, and the people 

 would be quite content with the modes of cookery they had 

 learnt during their long eastward migration. 



One other outlier of these brown Caucasians is found 

 in the Mentawi islands, the southernmost of the long 

 chain that lies off the west coast of Sumatra. These 

 people are described as being like Polynesians, but un- 

 like all the true Malayan tribes. Their language in its 

 abundance of vowels is like that of the Mahoris, and the 

 people resemble them also in the mildness of their dis- 

 position and their love of floral decoration. Professor 

 Keane regards them as the last remnant in this direction 

 of the ancient Caucasic people that once occupied south- 

 eastern Asia and perhaps what are now the larger Malay 

 Islands, but who were elsewhere driven out or extermin- 

 ated by the Mongolian invasion. 



Comparison of Australians and the Lower Caiccasians. 



Returning now to the Australians let us see how far 

 they will bear comparison with the remote outposts of the 

 Caucasian race, as illustrated by the reproductions of a 

 few of Professor Spencer's beautiful photographs of the 

 Central Australian tribes. The man of the Arunta tribe 

 (Fig. 85), with his fine beard, his wavy locks and good- 



