Kelænonesia
The dates of the four papers on this part of the world shew that the first preceded the earliest of the other three by as much as four years; a fact that must be borne in mind when the philological ethnography of New Guinea and the islands to the south and east of it is under notice. The vocabularies of each of the authors illustrated in papers 2 and. 3, more than doubled our previous data—Jukes’ illustrating the language of islands between New Guinea and Australia, Macgillivray’s those of the Louisiade Archipelago.
That there was a hypothesis at the bottom of No. 1 is evident. Neither is there much doubt as to the fact of that hypothesis being wrong.
I held in 1843 that, all over Oceania, there was an older population of ruder manners, and darker colour than the Malays, the proper Polynesians, and the populations allied to them; that, in proportion as these latter overspread the several islands of their present occupancy the aborigines were driven towards the interior; that in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea &c. the original black race remained unmolested.
This view led to two presumptions;—both inaccurate;
1. That the ruder tribes were, as such, likely to be Negrito;
2. That the Negrito tongues would be allied to each other.
The view, held by me now, will be given in a future notice.