Page:The Aborigines of Australia (1988).djvu/18

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THEIR ORIGIN.
3

that they are a mixture of two races, which, although generally classed under the one head, nevertheless possess very strongly marked peculiarities and distinctions—namely, the Malayan and Papuan or Austral-negro races. This supposition is doubtless grounded on certain physical peculiarities, favourable to the belief that some admixture of the negro blood of New Guinea prevails amongst the New Hollanders. Foremost among these peculiarities are their hair and lips, the former presenting the half-woolly texture of the negro, while the latter, by their thickness, would also seem to indicate some slight connection with that caste. The best and most industrious writers on the subject, however, repudiate this alleged mixture of races in the New Hollander, deriving his origin directly from the Malays. This opinion seems based on the most substantial reasoning, and is the one most generally received. Although, as before observed, in some particulars the natives of New Holland may afford some slight indications of negro peculiarities, a closer examination must tend to place the former in a position much superior to any in which the Papuans can be viewed. These latter are described as a race of woolly-headed, thick-lipped negroes, slightly differing in feature from those of Africa, of a lighter colour than the latter, and scarcely ever exceeding five feet in height Here everyone at all acquainted with the aboriginal race of this continent must perceive that the analogy altogether fails; the New Hollander is so far from being low of stature, that his height seldom, if