Daily national Democrat., 1858-10-31


HAIRLESS RACE OF AUSTRALIANS AeoRIe1yEs.
In yesterdays Bulletin we alluded to the re-
cent discovery in New South Wales of a hair
less race of aborigines. The subject is excl
ting much speculation in the Australian
journals, and from them we CLEAN some ad-
dltlonal Information about this new species
of the geaHS homo 1t appears that n certain
MI Roberts civil engineer and surveyor at
Sydney had for nine months lately been pro-
tessionally engaged in the survey of squattng
stations in the Barwan district, and in the
exploration of the new runs in the vicinity
Of Big River, the Corga and the Balonne, all
rivers in New South Wales. During his So
journ on the last named, he encountered
some of these "hairless savages." They com.
prised family of six, namely, a male and
female, with four piccaninny pledges of their
affcction-all destitute of capillary ornature.
This total absence of hair and even of down.
from their boiicS, was attributed by Mr..
Roberts either to some climatic disease. as
the Scrofulous and ricketty condition of their
PbySj2~e would seem to suggest-or else, to
the intense action of the tropical heat of those
ATTITUDES on constitutions not organized for
the endurance of such high temperature.
The complexion of these savages which is of
Il copper color, less dark than that of the
North American Indians, and partaking more
of the Mexican tint, with their other phvsi-
ognomic peculiarties, point to their ethno.
graphic history as being totally distinct from
those of the aboriginal inhabitants of Aus
tralia with whom people have been hitherto
familiar. 1t appears from the accounts in
the Sydney papers that no mention or alu-
sion to vast gold mines in the deep interior
of the Australian continent was made by the
party, nor did they exhibit any of those or
namcnts with which even the uncivilized
denizens of auriferous districts love to deco
rate their bodies. 1t is not improbable that
this isolated family is the produce of an in
termiXture of the Malays and the northwest
ern black tribes of Australia, driven from the
arid sands of the interior by continuous and
excessive drought, or that they are the rem
nant of some long extinct and civilized ma.
ton retreating before the irruption of some
powerful and barbarous hories. At appears
that the natives to the north and west of the
colony of New South Wales evii ce an antip-
athy TO the growth of hair on certain Dor
tions of their bodies, and for its removal EN-
ploy peculiar ddpilatory process.
Since, then, the existence of such pecu
liar species of the human race is attcsted bv
ted by distance, without possibility of com
munication or collusion-as the Sydney pa
pers unite in declaring--it is not improbable
that the unknown interior of the continent
of Australia may furnish a history analogous
to that of Central America or Japan, and
that the dreary waste of burning sands with
in which past explorations have been con.
fined, is but the natural boundary as well of
the British settlements on the eastern coast ms
of some vast and ancient empire beyond it.
This barrier once o'erstepped, we may be in
troduced to some new family of the human
race, or 10 its history or remains-to a re-
gion studded with the monuments of civil
zation either existent or extinct
As might be expected, the journals of NeN
South Wales call upon travellers and men of
science, and squatters on the confines of the
settled districts and deep and dreary waste,
to do all they can to elucidatc the mystery in
which the origin and locale of these strange
hairless beings are involved. Farther infor-
nation from Australia on this subject will be
awaited with much hinterest-Bulietin.