roken into any steady habits of industry, but where by wise kindness
the black fellow has been kept from the vices of civilization he is a
most engaging savage. Tall, thin, muscular, with fine black beard and
hair and a curiously wide and impressive forehead, he is not at all
unhandsome. He is capable of great devotion to a white master, and is
very plucky by daylight, though his courage usually goes with the fall
of night. He takes to a horse naturally, and some of the finest riders
in Australia are black fellows.

An attempt is now being made to Christianize the Australian blacks. It
seems to prosper if the blacks can be kept away from the debasing
influence of bad whites. They have no serious vices of their own, very
little to unlearn, and are docile enough. In some cases black children
educated at the mission schools are turning out very well. But, on the
other hand, there are many instances of these children conforming to the
habits of civilization for some years and then suddenly feeling "the
call of the wild," and running away into the Bush to join some nomad
tribe.

It is not possible to be optimistic about the future of the Australian
blacks. The race seems doomed to perish. Something can be done to
prolong their life, to make it more pleasant; but they will never be a
people, never take any share in the development of the continent which
was once their own.

A quite different type of native comes under the rule of the Australian
Commonwealth--the Papuan. Though Papua, or New Guinea, as it was once
called, is only a few miles from the north coast of Australia, its race
is distinct, belonging to the Polynesian or Kanaka type, and resembling
the natives of Fiji and Tahiti.

Papua is quite a tropical country, producing bananas, yams, taro, sago,
and cocoa-nuts. The natives, therefore, have always had plenty of food,
and they reached a higher stage of civilization than the Australian
aborigines. But their food came too easily to allow them to go very far
forward. "Civilization is impossible where the banana grows," some
observer has remarked. He meant that since the banana gave food without
any culture or call on human energy, the people in banana-growing
countries would be lazy, and would not have the stimulus to improve
themselves that is necessary for progress. To get a good type of man he
must have the need to work.

The Papuan, having no need of industry, amused himself with head-hunting
as a national sp