78 AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 



and more advanced in civilization: mop-headed, 

 practising- betel chewdng, and wearing- the breech- 

 cloth. Without entering- into the question of their 

 supposed origin, I may state that, in some of their 

 phj'sical, intellectual, and moral characters, and also 

 partially in their language, they seem to me to shew 

 indications of a Malayo-Polynesian influence, pro- 

 bably acquired before their arrival in New Guinea, 

 along' the shores of which they seem to have ex- 

 tended, colonising- the Louisiade during- their pro- 

 gress, which at Cape Possession was finally arrested 

 by their meeting- with the other section of the race 

 alluded to iu the preceding- paragraph. 



It would be curious to see the effects produced at 

 the point of jimction of these two sections of the 

 same race, probably somewhere between Aird River 

 and Cape Possession. It is not unlikely that the 

 Papuans of Redscar Bay and its vicinity derived 

 the use of the bow and arrow from their neighbours 

 to the westward, — and that the kind of canoe in use 

 in Torres Strait was an introduction from the east- 

 ward, is rendered probable— setting aside other 

 considerations — by a circumstance suggested by 

 the vocabularies, i.e. that the name for the most 

 characteristic part of the canoe in question — the 

 outrigger float — is essentially the same from the 

 Louisiade to Cape York.* 



* Louisiade, Soma. Darnley Island, Charima. 



Dufaure Island, Sarima. Prince of Wales Islands, Sarima. 

 Redscar Bay, Barima. Cape York, Charima. 



