CONTRAST WITH ISLANDERS. 297 



interest and curiosity. In our endeavours to get 

 words from them they merely repeated our sounds or 

 imitated our gestures. When they spoke it was 

 difficult to catch the sound, so different was their 

 speech from the clear open enunciation of the 

 Erroobians. With the latter we often eat, as they 

 were perfectly clean; but these Australians, on 

 our shooting a kite or two, instantly seized them, 

 plucked off some of the feathers, and then warming 

 the body a little at the fire, tore it open and eat it 

 up, entrails and all. These Australians at Cape 

 York precisely resembled those of the rest of the 

 continent, as I have myself seen them, and as they 

 have been described by other voyagers. The Torres 

 Strait Islanders, on the contrary, evidently belong 

 to the great Papuan race, which extends from Timor 

 and the adjacent islands through New Guinea, New 

 Ireland, and New Caledonia, to the Feejee Islands. 



It is singular enough, that in Torres Strait, 

 the line of demarcation should be almost equally 

 strong and precise between two kinds of vegetation, 

 and two groups of the lower order of animals, as 

 between two varieties of the human race. The dull 

 and sombre vegetation of Australia spreads all over 

 Cape York and the immediately adjacent islands. 

 Wide forests of large, but ragged-stemmed gum- 

 trees, with their almost leafless and quite shadeless 

 branches, constitute the characteristic of this vegeta- 

 tion. Here and there are gullies, with jungles of 

 more umbrageous foliage, and some palms, but the 



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