Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/111

Rh The book is admirably printed, and everywhere a wide range of authorities is cited. As a whole it reflects the greatest credit on modern Biblical scholarship.

object in this work is to demonstrate that the original settlers of Australia and Tasmania were Papuans, and that while in Tasmania the race remained pure, in Australia it became mixed by an influx of Dravidians, who made their way from India across the intervening seas and islands, and by a smaller and later influx of Malays. The word Papuan is defined as Melanesian, with which the author is of opinion that infusion of Negrito blood may be traced, but the question is left undetermined. To prove the hypothesis he adduces five arguments, from physiology, from mythology and tradition, from implements, from customs, and from language. He supposes that the Papuan settlement took place at a remote period before Tasmania was separated by Bass Strait from the continent, and that the Dravidian invasion took place after that event, the invaders landing first on the north-east coast of Queensland, and fighting their way southward and south-westward along the river-courses to the centre about Lake Eyre, and finally merging in the general body of inhabitants. The Malay incursions, on the other hand, though repeated, are of less account; they have left, however, "unquestionable traces on the Australian language."

The theory in its broad outlines is recommended by an à priori probability. The physical argument and the argument from weapons have considerable force; but I pass them by as less interesting to students of folklore pure and simple than some of the others. It is in the argument from language that the most valuable contribution has been made by Mr. Mathew towards the solution of the problem. His comparative tables of words, his