The general assuagement of manners and customs will ultimately, it must be hoped, entirely obliterate these distinctions, so cruel and unjust to the unhappy people whom a fatal destiny has condemned to a state of perpetual martyrdom, without their having done anything to deserve it, beyond coming into the world beneath an African sky.
CHAPTER II.
EASTERN BRANCH.
The Eastern Blacks, who have also been called Melanesians and Oceanian Negroes, inhabit the western part of Oceania and the south-east of Asia. Their complexion is very brown, sometimes increasing in darkness until it reaches intense black. Their hair is frizzled, crisp, flaky, and occasionally woolly. Their features are disagreeable, their figures of little regularity, and their extremities often lank. They live in tribes or small divisions, without forming themselves into nationalities.
We shall divide them into two groups, one, the Papuan Family, composed of peoples among whom the characteristics indicated above, are the most developed; the other, the Andaman Family, made up of tribes which more resemble the Brown Race, and probably result from a mixture of it with the Black one.
Papuan Family.
The Papuan Family seems to dwell only in small islands or on the coasts of larger ones. Two groups of peoples are observable in it, one, resembling the Malays, consists of the Papuans, who inhabit the New Guinea Archipelago, and the other, resembling the Tabuans, occupies the Fiji Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Solomon range. We proceed to say a few words as to the manners and customs of these different sections of the Black Race.
Papuans.—A remarkable feature presented by the Papuans, is the enormous bulk of their half-woolly hair. Their skin is dark brown, their hair black, and their beard, which is scanty, is, as well as their eyebrows and eyes, of the same colour. Though they have rather flat noses, thick lips and broad cheekbones, their countenance is by no means unpleasant. The women are more ugly than the men, their withered figures, hanging breasts, and masculine features render them disagreeable to the sight, and even the young girls have a far from attractive look.