The Brows Are
Depressed, The Mouth Wide, But Not Projecting, And The Nose Small
And Well Formed But For The Great Dilatation Of The Nostrils.
The
face is smooth, and rarely develops the trace of a beard; the
hair black, coarse, and perfectly straight.
The Papuan, on the
other hand, has a face which we may say is compressed and
projecting. The brows are protuberant and overhanging, the mouth
large and prominent, while the nose is very large, the apex
elongated downwards, the ridge thick, and the nostrils large. It
is an obtrusive and remarkable feature in the countenance, the
very reverse of what obtains in the Malay face. The twisted beard
and frizzly hair complete this remarkable contrast. Hero then I
had reached a new world, inhabited by a strange people. Between
the Malayan tribes, among whom I had for some years been living,
and the Papuan races, whose country I had now entered, we may
fairly say that there is as much difference, both moral and
physical, as between the red Indians of South America and the
negroes of Guinea on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
Jan. 1st, 1857.-This has been a day of thorough enjoyment. I have
wandered in the forests of an island rarely seen by Europeans.
Before daybreak we left our anchorage, and in an hour reached the
village of Har, where we were to stay three or four days. The
range of hills here receded so as to form a small bay, and they
were broken up into peaks and hummocks with intervening flats and
hollows.
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