178 THE KE ISLANDS. [chap. xxix. 



One would speak at a time, with a low voice and great 

 . deliberation, and the mode of making a bargain would be 

 by quietly refusing all your offers, or even going away 

 without saying another word about the matter, unless you 

 advanced your price to what they were willing to accept. 

 Our crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, 

 seemed quite scandalized at such unprecedented bad 

 manners, and only very gradually made any approach to 

 fraternization with the black fellows. They reminded me 

 of a party of demure and well-behaved children suddenly 

 broken in upon by a lot of wild romping, riotous boys, 

 whose conduct seems most extraordinary and very naughty ! 

 These moral features are more striking and more con- 

 clusive of absolute diversity than even the physical 

 contrast presented by the two races, though that is suffi- 

 ciently remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the 

 mop-like head of frizzly hair, and, most important of all, 

 the marked form of countenance of quite a different type 

 from that of the Malay, are what we cannot beKeve to 

 resu.lt from mere climatal or other modifying influences on 

 one and the same race. The Malay face is of the Mon- 

 golian type, broad and somewhat flat. The brows are 

 depressed, the mouth wide, but not projecting, and the nose 

 smaU and well formed but for the great dilatation of the 

 nostrils. The face is smooth, and rarely develops the trace 

 of a beard ; the hair black, coarse, and perfectly straight. 



