The
Conditions Of The Two Experiments Are Totally Different.
The true
"political economy" of a higher race, when governing a lower race,
has never yet been worked out.
The application of our "political
economy" to such cases invariably results in the extinction or
degradation of the lower race; whence, we may consider it probable
that one of the necessary conditions of its truth is the
approximate mental and social unity of the society in which it is
applied. I shall again refer to this subject in my chapter on
Ternate, one of the most celebrated of the old spice-islands.
The natives of Banda are very much mixed, and it is probable that
at least three-fourths of the population are mongrels, in various
degrees of Malay, Papuan, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch. The first
two form the bases of the larger portion, and the dark skins,
pronounced features, and more or less frizzly hair of the Papuans
preponderates. There seems little doubt that the aborigines of
Banda were Papuans, and a portion of them still exists in the Ke
islands, where they emigrated when the Portuguese first took
possession of their native island. It is such people as these
that are often looked upon as transitional forms between two very
distinct races, like the Malays and Papuans, whereas they are
only examples of intermixture.
The animal productions of Banda, though very few, are
interesting. The islands have perhaps no truly indigenous
Mammalia but bats. The deer of the Moluccas and the pig have
probably been introduced.
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