46 Life o/'Sir Stamford Raffles. 



Returning hence to Java, as the field of home attraction, the 

 President " notices," as he modestly terms it, but in fact gives 

 a masterly general view of, occupying one-third of the memoir, 

 '' The extensive traces of antiquity, foreign intercourse, and 

 national greatness, which are exhibited in that island, in the 

 numerous monuments of a former worship, in the ruins of dilapi- 

 dated cities, in the character, the institutions, the language, and 

 the literature of the people ', " prefacing this investigation with 

 some remarks on the natural history of Java. These subjects 

 terminate with an account of the yet Hindu inhabitants of the 

 Teng'gar mountains ; and proceeding to mention the lead- 

 ing observations he had made on the island of Bali, now the 

 only one in the Eastern seas in which Hinduism still prevails as 

 the established religion of the country, Mr. Raffles alludes parti- 

 cularly to the peculiar and extraordinary character of the inha- 

 bitants, so widely different, as well morally as physically, from 

 that of every other nation in the Archipelago. 



The uniformity in habits and in language prevailing through- 

 out the various nations inhabiting the southern peninsula of 

 India, and the innumerable islands comprehended in the modern 

 divisions of Polynesia and Australia, next claim the Governor's 

 attention ; and as a subject new to the historian, and not unin- 

 teresting to the philosopher, he endeavours to trace the sources 

 on the continent of India, whence flowed the colonization and 

 subsequent civilization of the Eastern Islands ; and the periods 

 when Hindu colonies were first introduced into the different states. 

 Admitting the probability that the country lying between Siam 

 and China was the immediate source of this emigration, he pro- 

 ceeds, with the view just mentioned, to divide the history of the 

 Eastern Islands, with reference to the island of Java in parti- 

 cular, on which a powerful Hindu government was early estab- 

 lished, into five distinct periods; the first of which includes 

 the period beginning with the earliest account of the population, 

 and descends to the first establishment of a foreign colony in 

 Java, mentioned in the written annals of the country, or A. D. 

 600 ; when only the period of authentic history can be regarded 



