past changes which one of the most interesting parts of the earth has
undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here
given would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than
at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which supplied the facts.
In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give
such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous
islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant
reference to these generalizations which add so much to their interest.
Having given this general sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show
how the same principles can be applied to the individual islands of a
group, as to the whole Archipelago; and thereby make my account of the
many new and curious animals which inhabit them both, more interesting
and more instructive than if treated as mere isolated facts.
Contrasts of Races.--Before I had arrived at the conviction that the
eastern and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to distinct
primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the
Archipelago under two radically distinct races. In this I differed from
most ethnologists who had before written on the subject; for it had
been the almost universal custom to follow William von Humboldt and
Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as modifications of one
type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays and Papuans
differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character; and
more detailed research, continued for eight years, satisfied me that
under these two forms, as types, the whole of the peoples of the Malay
Archipelago and Polynesia could be classified. On drawing the line which
separates these races, it is found to come near to that which divides
the zoological regions, but somewhat eastward of it; a circumstance
which appears to me very significant of the same causes having
influenced the distribution of mankind that have determined the range of
other animal forms.
The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is sufficiently
intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea which animals do not
possess; and a superior race has power to press out or assimilate an
inferior one. The maritime enterprise and higher civilization of the
Malay races have enabled them to overrun a portion of the adjacent
region, in which they have entirely supplanted the indigenous
inhabitants if it ever possessed any; and to spread much of their
language, their domestic animals, and their customs far over the
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