NATIVE SONG.

He was a merry, active, good-humoured fellow, and gave us a number of songs, one of which I wrote down.  Although unfortunately I cannot give an accompanying translation, yet this song exhibits the remarkable softness of the language from the great number of vowels.

Ama watuya boyama
Manyure gerri gege udaeno
Dagi ginoa dagi gino ama
Watu yebbo.

Manyure gerri gege udaeno
Dagi egino da’ gino ama
Watu yebbo—­watu yebbo.

Most of them—­perhaps all—­were extempore, as on turning his attention to the moon, he struck up a song in which the name of that body was frequently mentioned.  He was treated to an exhibition of the magic lantern in the cabin by Captain Stanley, and a rocket was sent up to his great astonishment and admiration, which he found words to express in “kaiwa” (fire) “kaiwa, oh! dim dim!”

August 26th.

Our guest became very uneasy when he saw no canoes from the island coming off, and no symptoms of lowering a boat to land him.  His invitation to the shore and pantomime of killing a pig were repeated time after time, and he became very despondent.  Two canoes from the mainland came alongside, and he got into one which shoved off, but quickly returned and put him on board, as they were not going to the island.  The poor fellow at last appeared so miserable, being actually in tears, that a boat was sent to put him on shore abreast of the ship, and, when he landed, two young women and a child came running up to meet him.  A number of natives on the sandy beach were anxiously watching the boat, as if the long detention of the man on board the ship had made them suspicious of our treatment of him.

PECULIARITIES OF THE PAPUANS.

Without entering into details of uninteresting daily occurrences, I may here give a general account of such circumstances regarding the natives as have not previously been alluded to or insufficiently described.  It would be difficult to state the peculiarities of this portion of the Papuan* Race (including also the inhabitants of the Louisiade) for even the features exhibit nearly as many differences as exist among a miscellaneous collection of individuals of any European nation.  They appear to me to be resolvable into several indistinct types, with intermediate gradations; thus occasionally we met with strongly marked Negro characteristics, but still more frequently with the Jewish cast of features, while every now and then a face presented itself which struck me as being perfectly Malayan.  In general the head is narrow in front, and wide and very high behind, the face broad from the great projection and height of the cheekbones and depression at the temples; the chin narrow in front, slightly receding, with prominent angles to the jaw; the nose more or less flattened and widened at the wings, with dilated nostrils, a broad, slightly arched and gradually rounded bridge, pulled down at the tip by the use of the nose-stick; and the mouth rather wide, with thickened lips, and incisors flattened on top as if ground down.