The founders of the Australian race, Curr believes, were Africans, and
may have arrived in one canoe. The distance from Africa to Australia
is, however, great, and there are innumerable details of structure,
color, custom, myth, implements, language, etc., which have led the
latest authorities to conclude that the Australian race was formed
gradually by a mixture of Papuans, Malayans, and Dravidians of Central
India.[151] Topinard has given reasons for believing that there are
two distinct races in Australia. However that may be, there are
certainly great differences in the customs of the natives. As regards
the relations of the sexes, luckily, these differences are not so
great as in some other respects, wherefore it is possible to give a
tolerably accurate bird's-eye view of the Australians as a whole from
this point of view.