TNLANB TRIBES. 
229 
limited numbers of the garrison j and the amount of duty, 
whicii, although not arduous, required many indhiduals 
to perform it, rendered it impossible that a number of 
men sufficient to form an organised party could be spared. 
That they will be visited ere long, is, however, more than 
probable ; and although no striking novelty may be dis- 
covered, still it would be interesting to know something 
concerning the social state of this people. I have already 
stated that I have reason to suspect that these moun- 
taineers have a considerable mixture of Polynesian blood 
in their veins. This opinion was formed after having 
held long and close intercourse with the aboriginal tribes 
of some of the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago, 
whose pure Polynesian descent cannot be doubted, and 
whose customs appear to have undergone no change since 
the early migration of their race. At the same time, 1 
must state that I have no grounds for supposing that any 
distinct tribe of Polynesians is at present existing in the 
interior. It would rather appear that, at some very dis- 
tant period, a body of Polynesians (possibly of warriors, 
who had been driven out from some of the neighbouring 
islands, where the state of society resembled that of the 
South Sea groups when first discovered) may have been 
engrafted on an Australian, or rather, perhaps, on an 
' oriental negro^ stock ; for many circumstances which I 
shall have to state more distinctly below, would induce 
the supposition that the aboriginal inhabitants of this 
part of Australia very closely resembled the Papuans of 
New Guinea, or, what is almost the same thing, the 
aborigines of Van Diemen^s Land. The circumstance of 
