376 AUSTRALASIA. 



resembled the Malay species found in Timor.* On the other hand there exist 

 in the islands of Torres Strait peoples with abundant frizzly hair, who belong 

 probably to the same stock as the Papuans. Maer (Murray Island) is inhabited 

 by a dark race diiïering in no respects from the New Caledonians. 



But whatever be the origin of these contrasts amongst the natives, whether 

 due to difference of race or to diversity of environment and social life, the ordinary 

 type of the Australians not yet debased by a degraded existence amongst the 

 colonists is much finer than is usually supposed. Those especially who occupy 

 more favoured domains along the fertile river-banks are distinguished by fine 

 figures and a well-developed muscular system, with low but broad forehead, rather 

 flat nose, large mouth, massive jaws, brown animated eyes sheltered by very promi- 

 nent superciliary arches. The natives are generally free from physical defects, 

 and amongst those of West Australia Bishop Eudesindo Salvado noticed only four 

 blind, but not one either deaf, dumb, or insane. 



Although of dark or blackish complexion, like the Sudanese Africans, unlike 

 them the Australians have no woolly or frizzly hair, being in this respect distin- 

 guished from all other dark races. The beard, also, is much more developed than 

 that of the Negroes proper, while the lips are never everted so as to show the red 

 inner skin. Their weak point are the lower extremities — spindle legs, flat calves, 

 flat but very small feet. On the whole, they doubtless yield to the Europeans in 

 physical strength, though not in endurance and power of supporting pain, but they 

 are by no means the beings of grotesque and repulsive appearance as described by 

 travellers who saw them only in the wretched hovels on the outskirts of large 

 towns, or as depicted by the sportsmen who hunted them down Kke so much game. 

 To believe some accounts, they are little better than animals, intermediate 

 between man and the higher apes, and even more allied to the latter than the 

 former. 



On the other hand these vilified aborigines have found enthusiastic champions 

 amongst the dominant race. Mitchell, who had taken the black Yuranigh as his 

 guide across the tropical regions, expressly declares that the Australians of his 

 escort were "superior in penetration and judgment" to his white assistants, 

 although he had no occasion to complain of the latter. Yuranigh he calls his com- 

 panion, his counsellor and friend, and from the physical point of view regards his 

 superiority as self-evident. As a mere specimen of natural history, what civilised 

 animal, he asks, coidd have compared with this native for the beauty of his teeth, 

 his powerful digestion, the perfection of his organs of sight, hearing, smell, taste, 

 and touch, his staying powers in walking, running, and climbing trees, his healthy 

 constitution, and the intensity of his animal existence ? f 



As a rule the superior tribes have a coppery rather than a black complexion, 

 while nearly all the skulls are of the dolichocephalous or long type. The aborigines 

 appear to be most degraded physically in the arid central region, where man, 

 exhausted and stunted by hunger and thirst, passes his days in grubbing the 



* Journal of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North- Western and Western Australia. 

 t Tropical Australia. 



