Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the races of the Malay archipelago, dwells on the marked differences, physically, intellectually, and morally, between the Papuan and the Malay. The central home of the Papuans is New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands; but the same ethnical characteristics are traceable over the islands to the east of New Guinea, as far as the Fijis. “The Papuan,” Mr. Wallace remarks, “has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil, with elaborate carving; a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race.” In the affections and moral sentiments, on the contrary, the Papuans compare unfavourably with the Malays, who are gentle and passive in all their social relations. But this is properly traced to their listless, apathetic character; while the vigour of the uncivilised Papuan manifests itself in the unrestrained display of every emotion and passion, even among the women and children, and in violent collisions, inevitable in the social life of this savage race. Among such a people the best and the worst characteristics are often strangely intermingled. The Fiji Islanders use the bow and throw the javelin with great dexterity; but their peculiar and distinguishing weapon is a short missile club, which all habitually wear stuck in the belt, the symbolic national instrument of assassination. Many analogies of history tend, however, to refute the error of assuming the occurrence of moral degradation, even when manifested in parricide, cannibalism, and systematic treachery and assassination, to be necessarily incompatible with such intellectual development as distinguishes the Fijians from the Malays or other islanders of the Pacific. Of all the aborigines of the Pacific, the ferocious New Zealander has proved most capable of civilisation; and is found moreover to possess a traditional poetry and mythical legends of a highly striking and peculiar character. And turning from still undeveloped races of the world, we have only to study deeds perpetrated by the pagan Saxon, the Hun, or the later Dane and Norseman, to see in what hideous aspects the energies of a rude people may be manifested, who are nevertheless capable of becoming leaders in the civilisation of Europe. To judge by the monkish chronicles, no Fiji cannibal could surpass, either in savage atrocity or in hideousness of aspect, the Hungarian or Northman from whom the proudest of Europe’s nobles claim descent. The chroniclers of Germany, France, and Italy, dwell on the savage fury of the Huns; and the liturgy of the Gallican Church of the ninth century preserves the memorial of the pagan Northmen’s ravages, in the supplication added to its litany: _A furore Normannorum libera nos_. [Illustration: FIG. 59.—Fijian Pottery.]