The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

318 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.earth contains. Had I been blind, I could have been certainthat these islanders were not Malays. The loud, rapid, eagertones, the incessant motion, the intense vital activity manifestedin speech and action, are the very antipodes of the C[uiet, unimpulsive,unanimated Malay. These Ke men came ujd singingand shouting, dipping their paddles deep in the water andthrowing up clouds of spray ; as they approached nearer theystood ujD in their canoes and increased their noise and gesticulations; and on coming alongside, without asking leave, andwithout a moments hesitation, the greater part of themscrambled ujd on our deck just as if they were come to takepossession of a caj^tured vessel. Then commenced a scene ofindescribable confusion. These forty black, naked, mop-headedsavages seemed intoxicated with joy and excitement. Not oneof them could remain still for a moment. Every individual ofV our crew was in turn surrounded and examined, asked fortobacco or arrack, grinned at and deserted for another. Alltalked at once, and our captain was regularly mobbed by thechief men, who wanted to be employed to tow us in, and whobegged vociferously to be paid in advance. A few presents oftobacco made their eyes glisten ; they would exprass theirsatisfaction by grins and shouts, by rolling on deck, or bya headlong leap overlDoard. School-boys on an unexpectedholiday, Irishmen at a fair, or midshijimen on shore, wouldV/^ give but faint idea of the exuberant animal enjoyment of thesepeople.Under similar circumstances Malays could not behave as thesePapuans did. If they came on board a vessel (after askingpermission), not a word would be at first spoken, except a fewcompliments, and only afte-r some time, and very cautiously,would any approach be made to business. One would speak ata time, with a low voice and great deliberation, and the modeof making a bargain would be by quietly refusing all your offers,or even going away without saying another word about thematter, unless you advanced your price to M'hat they werewilling to accept. Our crew, many of whom had not made thevoyage before, seemed quite scandalized at such unprecedentedbad manners, and only very gradually made any apj^roach tofraternization with the black fellows. They reminded me of aparty of demure and well-behaved children suddenly broken inupon by a lot of wild, romping, riotous boys, whose conductseems most extraordinary and very naughty !These moral features are more striking and more conclusiveof absolute diversity than even the pliysical contrast jDresentedby the two races, though that is sufficiently remarkable. Thesooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like head of frizzly hair,and, most important of all, the marked form of countenance ofquite a different type from that of the Malay, are what we cannotbelieve to result from mere climatal or other modifyinginfluences on one and the same race. The Malay face is of the