When the wilder inhabitants are represented at all, they are represented as approaching the character of the Negro.
On the other hand some are fairer than the generality. Both these are phenomena that we have either seen before, or shall see in the sequel—in the Samang of Malacca, and the Dyaks of Borneo, as well as in Durville's Arafuras of Celebes.
In one particular village, near the north-eastern extremity, Mr. Earle found red hair, a specimen of which was in the possession of Dr. Prichard. In noting this, we must also note the habit of colouring the hair, which will be shown in the sequel to be a Papua custom.
Curly hair also was met with by the same observer; and so was coarse bushy hair; those tribes where it was found being the tribes that suffered from the oppression of the others, and which supplied them with slaves.
TIMOR LAUT.
From an English sailor who lived sometime in Timor Laut as a prisoner and a slave, I had the opportunity of collecting a few facts concerning Timor Laut, or Timor of the Sea. The numerals, which was all he knew of the language, were Malay. The people he described as dark, but not so dark as some of the slaves, whom they were in the habit of either purchasing or stealing. He knew of no second race, nor of any second language in the island.
THE SERWATTY AND KI ISLANDS.
For the Serwatty and Ki Islands, the best, indeed, nearly the only information, is to be collected from the voyage of the Durga, and from subsequent observations by Mr. Earle, the translator of the Voyage, and himself an independent investigator. Here, with one exception, the personal appearance was that of the Javanese and Bugis.
The language throughout, which was particularly investigated, is Oceanic, i.e., approaching the Malay or the Polynesian. The Kissa dialect, the one best known in detail, exhibited some letter-changes, which will be found frequent in the Polynesian, viz., h for s, k for t, w for b, along with the ejection of the final ng.