Taken as a race, they are very fine examples of savage humanity, tall, well-shaped, and powerful. They are remarkable for two physical peculiarities. The one is a roughness of the skin, and the other is the growth of the hair. The reader may remember that some of the tribes of Southern Africa have the hair of the head growing in regular tufts or patches, each about the size of a pea. It is a remarkable fact that, in the Papuan race, the hair grows in similar patches, but, instead of being short like that of the South African, it grows to a considerable length, sometimes measuring eighteen inches from root to tip. The Papuans are very proud of this natural ornament, and therefore will seldom cut it off; but as, if left untrained, it would fall over the eyes, they have various modes of dressing it, but in most cases manage to make it stand out at right angles from the head. Sometimes they take the hair of each patch separately and screw it up into a ringlet. Sometimes they tease out all the hairs with a wooden comb of four or five prongs, and, as the hair is very coarse and stiff, it is soon induced to assume a mop-like shape, and to increase the apparent size of the head to an enormous extent. Indeed, the word Papua is derived from this peculiarity of the hair. In the Malay language, the word which signifies “crisped” is _pua-pua_, which is easily contracted into _pa-pua_. Even the hair of the face grows in similar patches, and so does that on the breast of the man, and in the latter case the tufts are much further apart than on the head or face. The color of the Papuans is a very dark chocolate, sometimes inclining to black, but having nothing in common with the deep shining black of the negro. Their features are large and tolerably well made, though the nose is very broad at the wings, and the lips wide. The nose, however, is not flat like that of the negro, but is prominent, rather arched, and descends so low that when seen in front the tip nearly reaches the upper lip. The natives seem to be perfectly aware of this peculiarity, and perpetuate it in their carvings. Although taken as a whole, they are a fine race, there are many diversities among the different tribes, and they may be divided into the large and small tribes. The former are powerfully built, but more remarkable for strength than symmetry--broad-breasted and deep-chested, but with legs not equal in strength to the upper parts of the body.