58 MAMMALS. 



tlie Irishman and the Kentish yeoman. All are tribes which have acquired, from force of cha- 

 racter, locality, physical conditions of life, or other circumstances, features or dispositions, to a 

 certain extent, distinctive ; but as great original races, they cannot be distinguished one from 

 the other. 



Next to the Mongol tribes, we have the Chinese and Japanese, which have no claims to 

 more than tribal distinction ; distinct races they are not. Of the Hindoos, Major-General Briggs 

 truly says : — " The Hindus arc universally acknowledged to be of that branch of the human family 

 denominated by Blumenbach Caucasian, and they believe they invaded India from the north-west."* 

 Neither are the Affghans and Persians any thing more than tribes, and as Kttle are the Greeks, 

 Turks, Egjqptians, and Arabs of the shores of the Mediterranean. 



The Malays, or brown tribes of the Indian Archipelago, are farther separated than any of the rest 

 from the other inhabitants of the continents of Asia and Europe ; and if any third race, besides the 

 whites and the blacks, is to be admitted, it should be the Malays. Still, there are points of affinity 

 between them and the Chinese and other Mongolian tribes which prevent their being so received. 

 There is as much difference between the South American Indian of the Amazons, and many of the 

 tribes of North iVmerican Indians, as there is between the Malay and the Chinese; and if we 

 retain the two former as one, in defiance of their physical dissimilarity, on what parity of reasoning 

 can we separate the two latter ? I regard the Malays as merely one of the many offshoots or 

 tributaries of the great white race. 



Now there is one thing to be observed regarding all the lands and people over which we 

 have cast our eyes, viz. that they are conterminous and continuous ; and not only so now, but if 

 we 'suppose the northern hemisphere to be sunk one hundred fathoms (as shown in Map 2), even 

 then there is easy communication between all the unsunk portions of this great extent of land. 

 The Straits of Bhering are sufficiently near to furnish such a people as the Esquimaux with an easy ' 

 means of transit from one continent to the other at any time ; and there is no other physical barrier 

 of any kind to interrupt the progress of man from Cape Horn to Singapore. No doubt Ceylon is 

 separated from India ; and Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, all of which are inhabited by the Malay stock, 

 are separated from Siam and China by straits and seas ; but these are narrow, and would form 

 no obstacle to the passage of a moderately maritime people, and in addition, a rise of the land to the 

 extent of 100 fathoms woidd unite the whole of these islands with the continent (see Map 1). 



As already said, however, in the East, after we reach the south-eastern extremity of 

 Borneo, the shallow seas give place to an unfathomable ocean, out of which spring lands, which, 

 although comparatively near in point of distance, and without geological distinction, bear a different 

 faima, a different flora, and a different race of men. Those two regions are separated from each 

 other by the Straits of Macassar and the Straits of Lombock ; Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and the 

 Malayan Archipelago, lying on the one hand ; Celebes, Gilolo, New Guinea, and Australia, on 

 the other. 



It seems a reasonable inference from these facts, that Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, have 

 been connected at some former period with each other and the mainland, while Celebes, New 

 Guinea, and the neighbouring islands, have never been connected with them, or at least have 

 been separated from them for a long period. The former countries, says Mr. Wallace in a 

 recent paper on the subject, "are, in fact, stiU connected, and that so completely, that an 



* BaiGGS on the Aboriginal Tribes of ludia, in " Reports of Britisli Assoc." 18.00, p. 160. 



