Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

876 AUSTRALASIA.resembled the Malay species found in Timor.* On the otlier hand there existin the islands of Torres Strait peoples with abundant frizzly hair, who belongprobably to the same stock as the Papuans. Maer (Murray Island) is inhabitedby a dark race differing in no respects from the New Caledonians.But whatever be the origin of these contrasts amongst the natives, whetherdue to difference of race or to diversity of environment and social life, the ordinarytype of the Australians not yet debased by a degraded existence amongst thecolonists is much finer than is usually supposed. Those especially who occupymore favoured domains along the fertile river-banks are distinguished by finefigures and a well-developed muscular system, with low but broad forehead, ratherflat nose, large mouth, massive jaws, brown animated eyes sheltered by very prominentsuperciliary arches. The natives are generally free from physical defects,and amongst those of West Australia Bishop Rudesindo Salvado noticed only fourblind, but not one either deaf, dumb, or insane.Although of dark or blackish complexion, like the Sudanese Africans, unlikethem the Australians have no woolly or frizzly hair, being in this respect distinguishedfrom all other dark races.The beard, also, is much more developed thanthat of the Negroes proper, while the lijas are never everted so as to show the redinner skin.Their weak point are the lower extremities—spindle legs, flat calves,flat but very small feet. On the whole, they doubtless yield to the Europeans inphysical strength, though not in endurance and power of sujoporting pain, but theyare by no means the beings of grotesque and repulsive appearance as described bytravellers who saw them only in the wretched hovels on the outskirts of largetowns, or as depicted by the sjDortsmen who hunted them down like so much game.To believe some accounts, they are little better than animals, intermediatebetween man and the higher apes, and even more allied to the latter than theformer.On the other hand these vilified aborigines have found enthusiastic championsamongst the dominant race. Mitchell, who had taken the black Yuranigh as hisguide across the ti'opical regions, expressly declares that the Australians of hisescort were " superior in penetration and judgment " to his white assistants,although he had no occasion to complain of the latter.Yuranigh he calls his companion,his counsellor and friend, and from the physical point of view regards hissuperiority as self-evident. As a mere specimen of natural history, what civilisedanimal, he asks, could have compared with this native for the beauty of his teeth,his powerful digestion, the perfection of his organs of sight, hearing, smell, taste,and touch, his staying powers in walking, running, and climbing trees, his healthyconstitution, and the intensity of his animal existence ? tAs a rule the superior tribes have a coppery rather than a black complexion,while nearly all the skulls are of the dolichocejjhalous or long type.The aboriginesappear to be most degraded physically in the arid central region, where man,exhausted and stunted by hunger and thirst, passes his days in grubbing the* JciuriHil of Two Expeditions of Biscovery in North-Western and Western Australia.tTropical Australia.