140 
FROM HONG-KONG TO YOKOHAMA. 
living model of an ancient Greek warrior such as the painter David loved to represent. I 
could not help smiling at the absurdity of one of the finest men of his tribe becoming so 
enraged as almost to commit murder because he had failed to secure a handful of beads. 
He saw the smile and returned it, having completely dismissed the “fire-eyed fury” which 
had inspired him a moment before. It was generally remarked that their conduct was 
irreproachable as long as cupidity and envy were not excited by the distribution of presents. 
Amongst naked savages, the social distinctions which exist between the rich and the poor, 
the chief and the common man, or may be the slave, are—to the European—indistinguishable, 
and it may happen that a gift of supreme value in their eyes is bestowed upon the latter, 
while the former, who stands close by, is sent away empty-handed. W hether it was owing 
to such a cause, or that they wished to secure all the articles in our possession, I know 
not; but when we were gathered on the beach of D’Entrecasteaux Island waiting for the 
boat, we found ourselves surrounded by an angry crowd. Some were flourishing spears and 
hatchets, and exciting their comrades to the attack; others waded into the water, and seized 
upon the boat in order to prevent our departure. Our tars quietly knocked them on the 
fingers, and we were soon beyond reach of their weapons. Happily these islanders have 
no bows and arrows, otherwise a shower of the latter, probably poisoned, might have selected 
one or more victims amongst us. 
The skin of the Admiralty Islanders is decidedly of a darker, more sooty brown than 
that of the natives of Humboldt Bay. The not unfrequent occurrence of a Jewish cast of 
features was a subject of general remark on board. It is not easy to express in concise terms 
the difference observed between varieties of the same human race, although such difference 
may be patent to the most superficial eye. Few would confound an Englishman with an 
Irishman, a man from Derry with a man from Cork, a Scotch Highlander with a Lowlander, 
nor would a Frenchman mistake his countryman from Marseilles for one from Normandy; 
yet probably no two observers would agree as to the precise characteristics which distinguish 
the one from the other, for in each case two individuals might be found, one belonging to 
each variety, in whom the points of difference are extremely vague. The human mind, by an 
unconscious process of integration, is apt to sum up the numerous more or less definable 
differences which exist between races and varieties of races, and to create for itself, as the result 
of experience, a representative type, which can no more be confounded than a camel can be 
mistaken for- a horse. It is these representative types which naturalists have termed 
species, genus, variety, &c., although they have not yet been able to agree as to where the 
one ends and the other begins. A comparison between the two groups of natives from 
Humboldt Bay and from the Admiralty Islands will best illustrate the above remarks. They 
are founded upon sketches and notes taken on the spot, and, apart from the difference in dress, 
if such it can be called, there is a clear contrast between the two, although the originals of 
both belong probably to the same section of mankind—the Papuan or woolly-haired race. 
On the 10th of March we bade farewell to this interesting scene, which, as we recall 
it to our mind, seems rather the creation of a dream than reality. While steaming out of 
