"It is an island-world, with insular ideas and feelings, customs, and
modes of speech;
altogether cut off from the great continents into which
we are accustomed to divide the globe, and quite incapable of being
classed with any of them.
Its dimensions, too, are continental.""In the whole region occupied by this volcanic
belt earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt
at intervals of every few weeks or months,
while more severe ones,
shaking down whole villages, are sure to happen in one part or another
of this district almost every year.""If the claim of Australia to be a fifth division of the globe be
admitted, I would ask for this great archipelago to be considered a
sixth. ""Two very strongly contrasted races are found in this region: the Malays
who inhabit almost exclusively the western half of the Archipelago ...”“... and the Papuans whose head-quarters are New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands.""The amount of diversity between these two regions is fully as great as exists between Africa and South America."
"The Malay hair is very constant, being invariably black and straight."
"The Papuan hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls."
"The colour of the typical Malay is a light
reddish-brown, with a more or less olive tint. The colour may be
compared to that of cinnamon or half-roasted coffee, and it is on the
whole very constant over a wide extent of country."
"The colour of the Papuan people is a deep sooty-brown or black,
sometimes approaching but never quite equalling the jet-black of some
African tribes. It varies in tint more than that of the Malay, and is
sometimes a dusky-brown."
"The hair of the Malay people is very constant [...] so much so that any
lighter tint, or any wave or curl however slight, is rarely met with,
and may I believe be considered a sure proof of the admixture of some
foreign blood.""At length I am in Celebes! I have been here
about three weeks, and as yet have not done much, except explored the
nakedness of the land. And it's indeed naked.
I have never seen a more uninteresting country than the neighbourhood of Makassar."
"The arms, legs, and breasts of the Malays are, to use a common
expression, as smooth as the palm of one's hand, and almost as
completely destitute of any growth of hair."
"The face of Papuan men is adorned with a beard of the same frizzly
nature as the hair of the head. The arms, legs, and breast are also
clothed with hair of a similar nature.""The arms, legs, and breasts of the Malays are, to use a common
expression, as smooth as the palm of one's hand, and almost as
completely destitute of any growth of hair."
"The face of Papuan men is adorned with a beard of the same frizzly
nature as the hair of the head. The arms, legs, and breast are also
clothed with hair of a similar nature.""The Malay forehead is rather rounded, the brows low, the eyes black and very slightly oblique."
"The Papuan face is somewhat elongated, the forehead flattish, the brows very prominent.""Where shall we find human types offering more remarkable contrasts than these?
If mankind can be classed at all into distinct varieties, surely the Malays and Papuans must be kept for ever separate."
"There seems every reason to believe that human kind may have also
existed at the time when a great continent
occupied the tropical portions of the Pacific Ocean. [...] I believe
that the Papuan people are descended from the inhabitants of a land that
has now in great part sunk beneath the ocean."