354 The Present Condition of the Indian Archipelago. 



alligators. An endless variety of fragile and richly-coloured shells 

 not only lie empty on the sandy beaches, but are tenanted by pagu- 

 rian crabs, which, in clusters, batten on every rnorsel of fat sea-vi^eed 

 that has been left by the retiring waves. The coasts are fringed 

 with living rocks of beautiful colours, and shaped like stars, flowers, 

 bushes, and other symmetrical forms. Of multitudes of peculiar 

 animals which inhabit the seas, the dugong, or Malayan mermaid, 

 most attracts our wonder. 



Before we leave this part of our subject, we would assure any 

 European reader who may suspect that we have in aught written 

 too warmly of the physical beauty of the Archipelago, that the same 

 Nature which, in the west, only reveals her highest and most prodi- 

 gal terrestrial beauty to the imagination of the poet, has here un- 

 girdled herself, and given her wild and glowing charms, in all their 

 fulness, to the eye of day. The ideal has here passed into the real. 

 The few botanists who have visited this region declare, that from 

 the multitude of its noble trees, odorous and beautiful flowers, and 

 wonderful vegetable forms of all sorts, it is inconceivable in its mag- 

 nificence, luxuriance, and variety. The zoologists, in their turn, 

 bear testimony to the rare, curious, varied, and important animals 

 which inhabit it, and the number and character of those already 

 known is such as to justify one of the most distinguished of the day 

 in expressing his belief, that " no region on the face of the earth 

 would furnish more novel, splendid, or extraoi-dinary forms than the 

 unexplored islands in the eastern range of the Indian x\rchipelago." 



Hitherto we have faintly traced the permanent influence of the 

 physical configuration of the Archipelago in tempering the inter- 

 tropical heat, regulating the monsoons, determining the distribution 

 of plants and animals, and giving to the whole region its peculiar 

 character of softness and exuberant beauty. But when its rock 

 foundations were laid, the shadow of its future human as well as 

 natural history spread over them. Its primal physical architec- 

 ture, in diminishing the extent of dry land, has increased the va- 

 I'iety in the races who inhabit it ; while the mineralogical constitu- 

 tion of the insulated elevations, the manner in which they are dis- 

 persed throughout its seas, and all the meteoric and botanical con- 

 sequences, have affected them in innumerable modes. Again, as we 

 saw that the platform of the Archipelago is but an extension of the 

 great central mass cf Asia, and that the direction of the subterranean 

 forces had determined the ranges of the land, so we find that its 

 population is but an extension of the Asiatic families, and that the 

 direction of migration was marked out by the same forces. But, 

 separated by the sea from the great plains and valleys of the conti- 

 nent, having the grand routes of communication covered by moun- 

 tains and dense and difficultly penetrable forest, the Archipelago 

 could not be peopled by hordes, but must have owed its aborigines 

 to the occasional wandering of small parties or single families. The 



