Vaux.—On the Probable Origin of the Maori Races. 19 
the country ; and have, except accidentally, nothing in common with the 
Negroes. No doubt some of the Tamil population are dark enough, much 
darker than the ordinary Malay ; but their hair is as a rule of a soft glossy 
black, the very opposite to that of the crisp and woolly Negro. Far more 
probable, is a further suggestion of Mr. Thomson, that the Maoris are, in 
part, offsprings of the Tibetan and Ultra-Gangetic races—which Mr, 
Logan has, I think, also proposed, a race, perhaps, now represented by the 
Bajow or Oranglaut ;—(‘ Men of the Sea”) the more so, that these tribes 
are, in an especial manner, ‘“‘ Sea-nomads ” and frequent to this day all the 
waters and islands of the Indian Archipelago. In this way, no doubt, it 
will be quite possible for New Zealand to have been peopled—only, that 
unless this took place at a very remote period we should unquestionably 
find much more modern Malay in the Maori language, than either Mr. 
Crawfurd or Mr. Thomson have been able to point out.* Moreover this 
theory does not account for the supposed “‘ cross” unless we imagine the 
invading Bajows to have brought with them a handsome supply of Papuan 
slave girls. With Mr. Thomson’s further dictum, that the obliteration of an 
intervening race does not destroy the Ethnological links between two distant 
regions, I should, of course, agree—only that I do not perceive, in this case, 
any need for such an obliteration: he has not, I think, shewn that the 
actually occurring cases of this ‘‘ cross” are very numerous ; while, so far 
as I can learn from other sources of information, it would appear to be 
generally considered that the Maoris are one in race as well as in language. 
Mr. Thomson in his next paper ‘ On Barata Numerals” (‘ Trans. N. Z. 
Inst.,”” Vol. V.) endeavours to support his view of “ Barata expansion ’’ by 
an elaborate comparison of the numerals of 34 islands and districts with 
those now in use in New Zealand, drawn up with great care from the works 
of Logan, Earle, Wallace, and others, and maintains that the remarkable 
similarity he has, in many cases, succeeded in showing, is due to these places 
having all, at some time or other, been either colonized directly, or greatly 
influenced by the so-called ‘‘Bhirata’’ population. Now, as I have said 
* I should add that Mr. Thomson has given a very interesting account of the people 
whom he has met with in India—illustrated by his own sketches—with certain inferences 
from their physiognomies. With these views I do not presume to interfere—but I may be 
allowed to remark, that, with the exception of some very decidedly marked varieties, such 
as the Negro as compared with the pure Hindu or the pure Caucasian, individual | 
examples from drawings or even photographs are not perfectly satisfactory. We want 
presence of “ numbers ” before our conclusions can be safe. So in language—the oceur- 
rence of a good many individual words—without grammar or syntac—is nothing worth, 
as an evidence of the origin of the people among whom they may happen to be found. 
