180^ REPORT — 1861. 



From the southern limits of the Sahara to the extremity of the continent, Abys- 

 sinia excepted, but the great island of Madagascar included, no race of man exists 

 that has invented letters, built durable architectural monuments, or founded power- 

 ful commonwealths. Of the races inhabiting this territory, extending over twenty 

 degrees of latitude, by far the most numerous and to us the most interesting is the 

 Negro, too well known to need any description. Possessed of gi-eat bodily strength 

 and power of supporting toil, the history of the Xegi'oes would seem to show that 

 their understandings are not quite in proportion to their physical qualities. No 

 systematic and consistent fonu of religious belief has ever originated with a Negro 

 people, and the object of their belief is merely a mischievous magic. This in- 

 teriority of the NegTO can only be satisfactorily attributed to lack of mental power. 

 It is this inferiority, combined with eminent capacity for mechanic labour, that has 

 induced the powerful among themselves to make a trade in the weaker, just as other 

 races do in cattle, and which has seduced foreign nations in aU ages to engage in 

 the hateful traffic, to abstain from which demands an amount of moral restraint 

 not yet attained by aU the nations of Europe, and reached by none of those of Asia. 

 10,000,000 of these negi-oes are now in the New World and its islands, 7,000,000 

 of whom are slaves, to the gi'eat detriment of civilization, whether as regards the 

 slave or his owner. 



The great Malayan and Philippine Archipelagos afford many striking illusti-a- 

 tions of the connexion between physical geogi-aphy and ethnology, and I shall 

 adduce a few examples. The Island of Java, of volcanic formation, has a range of 

 high moimtains extending from one end to the other. These supply rich plains 

 and valleys with an abundant perennial irrigation, making this island one of the 

 most fertile spots on the globe. In form, Java is a long narrow island ; and although 

 of half the size of Britain, no part of it is above fifty miles distant fi-om the sea. 

 Its peaceful and docile inhabitants, at present about 12,000,000 in nimiber, have 

 immemorially been in possession of letters of their own invention, and their country 

 contains beautiful architectm-al monuments, while the political institutions of the 

 Javanese prove by their results that they gave no inconsiderable amount of pro- 

 tection to life and property. After refening to the contrast shown by Borneo, 

 another of the islands of the Archipelago, owing to its physical inferiority, he con- 

 tinued : — 



The Malay peninsula, fiilly double the size of Java, with some advantage over it 

 in shape, is generally of the same geological formation with Borneo ; and as to 

 minerals, it is rich in tin, iron, and gold. Like Borneo, it is covered by a dense 

 tropical forest, always, as already stated, a serious and almost msuperable obstacle 

 to the early progi'ess of civilization. The native inhabitants are ot the same race 

 as the Borneans, but even lower in the order of civilization. Immediately east of 

 Java are two small islands, Bali and Lombok, of the same geographical foi-mation 

 with that island, and, like it, having high ranges of mountains, the som-ce of an 

 abimdant imgation. Of the same race with the Javanese and Borneans, they have 

 letters and monuments, and are virtually in the same state of advancement as the 

 Javanese. Their population, computed at 1,000,000, is probably equal to that of all 

 Borneo. The Malayan peninsula and some of the Philippine Islands exhibit a 

 phenomenon imknown in any other part of the world — that of two distinct races of 

 men, dwelling, but not intermixing, in one and the same land. These are the 

 Malayan and a diminutive Negro, the latter leading an erratic life in the moimtains, 

 in as wild a state as that of any tribe of Americans, and the first with more or less 

 civilization — even possessing a knowledge of letters. The islands of the Pacific, 

 fi'omNew Guinea to the Feejee group, are peopled by negroes, always in a lower 

 condition than the brown race which peoplej the neighbom-ing islands, and the 

 greater number of their inhabitants are certainly cannibals. Voyagers have noticed 

 one favom'able distinction between these negToes and the brown and more civilized 

 race — they were always foimd honest, while the fairer people were invariably 

 incorrigible thieves. The brown race in question, proved, by identity of physical 

 form and language, to be the same from the Sandwich to the New Zealand Islands, 

 were found on their discovery (the last-named islands excepted) in a higher state 

 of civilization than any native people of America, except those inhabiting the 

 plateau of the Andes; This advancement they owed to the possession of such 

 cultivated plants as the yam, the batata, the bread-fruit, the taro or caladiiun, the 



