94 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



a very slight degree of civilisation. "Forty years have elapsed since the country 

 was colonised," says Mr. Breton, " and I have not yet heard of a single native 

 having been reclaimed from barbarism."^ Yet by their contact with the Europeans 

 who have of latter years settled the country, they have lost much of the natural 

 ferocity of their manners, and they have in many instances become industrious 

 laborers. This is the more remarkable when we reflect on their primitive roving 

 habits, which prevented their tilling the earth, or domesticating the indigenous 

 animals; for they obtained from day to day a casual subsistence almost solely by 

 fishing and the chase.f 



The languages of the Australians are peculiar to themselves, and as yet but 

 little understood; but it is now established that they borrow little or nothing from 

 the Sanserit.J 



The Australians are wholly deficient in maritime skill and enterprise. 

 They paddle along their coasts seated cross-legged on a log, nor is there any 

 evidence that they have ever crossed the straits which separate them from Van 

 Diemen's Land.§ 



The western coast of New Holland, and some of the adjacent islands, are 

 inhabited by people who have the general character of the Australians with some 

 traits of the Oceanic-Negro : thus at Melleville Island (fifteen miles from the 

 north coast) their feet are large, " their heads flat and broad, with low foreheads, 

 and the back of the head projects very much : their hair is strong like horse-hair, 

 thick, curly, and frizzled, and very black : their eyebrows and cheek bones are 

 extremely prominent, and their eyes small, sunk, and very keen and bright : nose 

 flat and short, the upper lip thick and projecting, mouth remarkably large, with 

 regular, fine, white teeth : chin small, and face much contracted at bottom. "|| 

 They have long bushy beards, and, like the Australians, scarify the skin in place 

 of tattooing. 



22. THE ALFORIAN FAMILY. 

 Of all the families of mankind, the Alfoers, or Horaforas, are perhaps least 



* N. South Wales, p. 240. 



t This gloomy picture is derived from the great majority of observers of Australian life. The 

 reader may consult Dawson's Australia for some very different views, which, however, appear to 

 be biassed by a genuine and active spirit of benevolence. See also Lang's Polynesian Nation. 



t Field. N. S. Wales, p. 210. § Campbell, in Trans. Roy. Geog. Soc. Ill, p. 158. 



II Campbell, in Trans. Roy. Geog. Soc. of London, III, p. 153. 



