Under Similar Circumstances Malays Could Not Behave As These
Papuans Did.
If they came on board a vessel (after asking
permission), not a word would be at first spoken, except a few
compliments, and only after some time, and very cautiously, world
any approach be made to business.
One would speak at a time, with
a low voice and great deliberation, and the mode of making a
bargain would be by quietly refusing all your offers, or even
going away without saying another word about the matter, unless
advanced your price to what they were willing to accept. Our
crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, seemed quite
scandalized at such unprecedented bad manners, and only very
gradually made any approach to fraternization with the black
fellows. They reminded me of a party of demure and well-behaved
children suddenly broken in upon by a lot of wild romping,
riotous boys, whose conduct seems most extraordinary and very
naughty. These moral features are more striking and more
conclusive of absolute diversity than oven the physical contrast
presented by the two races, though that is sufficiently
remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like head of
frizzly hair, and, most important of all, the marked form of
countenance of quite a different type from that of the Malay, are
what we cannot believe to result from mere climatal or other
modifying influences on one and the same race. The Malay face is
of the Mongolian type, broad and somewhat flat.
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