THE HUMAN SPECIES. 237 



tinctiorv, and there also, in general, constituted a privileged 

 order among them. This occurs even among the Tasmanians, 

 the lowest race of oriental Negroes, and now nearly extinct, 

 yet still familiar with water. The New Holland Papuas, who, 

 for want of trees serviceable for excavation, venture out upon 

 slips of bark but slightly bound together at the extremities, or 

 on pieces of drift-wood, not capable to support them until their 

 bodies are partially immersed ; nay, on the central lakes of 

 Africa, Negroes venture out, riding a stick, having two open 

 calabashes, one before, the other behind, which buoy them up 

 sufficiently, to admit in them the fish they catch, and stun or 

 kill with a billet. 



The Papuan of Australia is, in many respects, the most 

 sunken of human beings, and is partly mixed with Horafoura 

 tribes, whose presence is indicated by the hair being more 

 drooping and matted, the features less debased, and the limbs 

 more masculine. Some tribes towards the north are even fair, 

 and appear to have a tinge of Malay blood, perhaps imported 

 by the Trepang fishers on the coast. 



If the woolly-haired type, in the oriental portion of its dis- 

 tribution, is often of the smallest and ill-made proportions, 

 there are instances (perhaps, indeed, of races already somewhat 

 mixed) wh<*re they rise to six feet high, and possess powerful 

 frames, as was lately discovered in the interior of Australia. 

 But, in all, where any religious sentiments have been observed, 

 they seem to be imported, or sink into the lowest puerilities. 

 This is also the case in Africa, where the divinities are spec- 

 tres; or are reptiles, lizards, insects, birds, or beasts ; gods in 

 one season and game in another ; or they are wretched little 

 idols they call Fetiche, a word derived from Pet, pataichos, of 

 Phoenician or Egyptian origin; and, as it evidently means 

 father, shows that, in the first acceptation, was implied venera- 

 tion for departed tribal or family ancestors, but became de- 

 graded to a kind of idolatrous worship, which, in the hands of 

 Negroes, is bestowed upon monkey skulls, bits of bone and rag; 



