ss beautiful and less varied than may be found on any
favourable part of our own coasts.

The natives here, even those who seem to be of pare Papuan race, were
much more reserved and taciturn than those of Ke. This is probably
because I only saw them as yet among strangers and in small parties,
One must see the savage at home to know what he really is. Even here,
however, the Papuan character sometimes breaks out. Little boys sing
cheerfully as they walk along, or talk aloud to themselves (quite a
negro characteristic); and try all they can, the men cannot conceal
their emotions in the true Malay fashion. A number of them were one day
in my house, and having a fancy to try what sort of eating tripang would
be, I bought a couple, paying for them with such an extravagant quantity
of tobacco that the seller saw I was a green customer. He could not,
however, conceal his delight, but as he smelt the fragrant weed, and
exhibited the large handful to his companions, he grinned and twisted
and gave silent chuckles in a most expressive pantomime. I had often
before made the same mistake in paying a Malay for some trifle. In no
case, however, was his pleasure visible on his countenance--a dull and
stupid hesitation only showing his surprise, which would be exhibited
exactly in the same way whether he was over or under paid. These little
moral traits are of the greatest interest when taken in connexion with
physical features. They do not admit of the same ready explanation by
external causes which is so frequently applied to the latter. Writers
on the races of mankind have too often to trust to the information of
travellers who pass rapidly from country to country, and thus have few
opportunities of becoming acquainted with peculiarities of national
character, or even of ascertaining what is really the average physical
conformation of the people. Such are exceedingly apt to be deceived
in places where two races have long, intermingled, by looking on
intermediate forms and mixed habits as evidences of a natural transition
from one race to the other, instead of an artificial mixture of two
distinct peoples; and they will be the more readily led into this error
if, as in the present case, writers on the subject should have been in
the habit of classing these races as mere varieties of one stock, as
closely related in physical conformation as from their geographical
proximity one might suppose they ought to be. So far as I have yet see