Ancient Mariners 67 



which is of much greater importance to us in this enquiry (see 

 map, B and C). 



When the sailors from the west arrived at the Malay 

 Archipelago, perhaps in the seventh century B.C., and some of 

 them proceeded north to the Philippines, Formosa, Japan and 

 Korea, others pushed out towards the east to the series of 

 islands that reach out like so many stepping-stones into Melanesia, 

 and still further into the Polynesian area of the Pacific Ocean. 



As they made their way east these wanderers discovered 

 the pearl beds of Celebes, Halmahera, and the Aru Islands ; 

 and then they worked along the northern coastline of New 

 Guinea, settling and leaving the impress of their distinctive 

 culture only in those places where pearls were found (Perry)- 

 They passed around the eastern end of New Guinea and settled 

 in the Torres Straits to exploit the rich pearl-beds. In no spot 

 in the Far East has the imprint of ancient Egyptian civilization, 

 and especially its methods of mummification, been more indelibly 

 left than in the small islands that intervene between Australia 

 and New Guinea.^ 



One of the problems in the interpretation of this great 

 Oriental drift of western culture is to find an adequate explanation 

 of the relatively slight influence exerted in Australia. We might 

 have expected its enormous wealth of gold and pearls, precious 

 stones and minerals, to have attracted these keen-eyed prospectors 

 from the West, who do not seem to have failed to discover in the 

 whole of the rest of the world, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 or America, the sites where these kinds of wealth were to be 

 obtained. There is ample evidence in the variety of the burial 

 customs and beliefs of the aboriginal Australians that they were 

 strongly influenced by a series of these alien exploiters of gold 

 and pearls, but there is no sign, except possibly in the 

 Northern Territory, that the wanderers from the West discovered 

 the enormous wealth of the great island which they passed by on 

 their way to the Pacific and America. 



^ G. Elliot Smith, " Migrations of Early Culture," p. 23. 



