and he became very despondent. Two canoes from the mainland came
alongside, and he got into one which shoved off, but quickly returned and
put him on board, as they were not going to the island. The poor fellow
at last appeared so miserable, being actually in tears, that a boat was
sent to put him on shore abreast of the ship, and, when he landed, two
young women and a child came running up to meet him. A number of natives
on the sandy beach were anxiously watching the boat, as if the long
detention of the man on board the ship had made them suspicious of our
treatment of him.

PECULIARITIES OF THE PAPUANS.

Without entering into details of uninteresting daily occurrences, I may
here give a general account of such circumstances regarding the natives
as have not previously been alluded to or insufficiently described. It
would be difficult to state the peculiarities of this portion of the
Papuan* Race (including also the inhabitants of the Louisiade) for even
the features exhibit nearly as many differences as exist among a
miscellaneous collection of individuals of any European nation. They
appear to me to be resolvable into several indistinct types, with
intermediate gradations; thus occasionally we met with strongly marked
Negro characteristics, but still more frequently with the Jewish cast of
features, while every now and then a face presented itself which struck
me as being perfectly Malayan. In general the head is narrow in front,
and wide and very high behind, the face broad from the great projection
and height of the cheekbones and depression at the temples; the chin
narrow in front, slightly receding, with prominent angles to the jaw; the
nose more or less flattened and widened at the wings, with dilated
nostrils, a broad, slightly arched and gradually rounded bridge, pulled
down at the tip by the use of the nose-stick; and the mouth rather wide,
with thickened lips, and incisors flattened on top as if ground down.

(Footnote. As the term Papuan when applied to a Race of Mankind is not
strictly correct, I may here mention that whenever used in this work, it
includes merely the woolly or frizzled-haired inhabitants of the
Louisiade, South-East coast of New Guinea, and the islands of Torres
Strait.)

Although the hair of the head is almost invariably woolly, and, if not
cropped close, or shaved, frizzled out into a mop, instances were met
with in which it had no woolly tendency, but was either in short curls,
o