CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE Ki ISLANDS. 



(JANXTARY 1857.) . 



rpHE native boats that had come to meet us were three 



or four in number, containing in all about fifty men. ■ 

 They were long canoes, with the bow and stern rising up || 

 into a beak six or eight feet high, decorated with shells 

 and waving plumes of cassowaries hair. I now had my first 

 view of Papuans in their own country, and in less than five 

 minutes was convinced that the opinion already arrived at 

 by the examination of a few Timor and New Guinea slaves 

 was substantially correct, and that the people I now had 

 an opportunity of comparing side by side belonged to two 

 of the most distinct and strongly marked races that the 

 earth contains. Had I been blind, I could have been 

 certain that these islanders were not Malays. The loud, 

 rapid, eager tones, the incessant motion, the intense vital 

 activity manifested in sj)eech and action, are the very 

 antipodes of the quiet, unimpulsive, unanimated Malay. 

 These Ke men came up singing and shouting, dipping 



