The Malay Archipelago - Volume 2 - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace.






























































 -  Our
crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, seemed quite
scandalized at such unprecedented bad manners, and - Page 83
The Malay Archipelago - Volume 2 - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace. - Page 83 of 213 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

Our Crew, Many Of Whom Had Not Made The Voyage Before, Seemed Quite Scandalized At Such Unprecedented Bad Manners, And Only Very Gradually Made Any Approach To Fraternization With The Black Fellows.

They reminded me of a party of demure and well-behaved children suddenly broken in upon by a lot of wild romping, riotous boys, whose conduct seems most extraordinary and very naughty.

These moral features are more striking and more conclusive of absolute diversity than oven the physical contrast presented by the two races, though that is sufficiently remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like head of frizzly hair, and, most important of all, the marked form of countenance of quite a different type from that of the Malay, are what we cannot believe to result from mere climatal or other modifying influences on one and the same race. The Malay face is of the Mongolian type, broad and somewhat flat. 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. A broad beach of the whitest sand lined the inner part of the bay, backed by a mass of cocoa-nut palms, among which the huts were concealed, and surmounted by a dense and varied growth of timber. Canoes and boats of various sizes were drawn up on the beach and one or two idlers, with a few children and a dog, gazed at our prau as we came to an anchor.

When we went on shore the first thing that attracted us was a large and well-constructed shed, under which a long boat was being built, while others in various stages of completion were placed at intervals along the beach.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 83 of 213
Words from 42889 to 43420 of 111511


Previous 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online