10 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TKAVEL 



where. Here, too, we have abundant examples of the 

 overflow of the vast population of Chma. In almost 

 every city and town in the Archipelago, from Malacca to 

 the Aru Islands, and from Manila to Australia, the 

 Chinese form a by no means unimportant part of the 

 population, — nay, in some places, the bulk of it. In Java 

 the vast ruins of Bora-bodor and other great temples 

 testify to a Brahmmical occupation previous to the 

 Mohammedan conquest of the country, and similar remains, 

 though to a much smaller extent, occur in Sumatra and 

 Borneo. And, finally, throughout the whole Archipelago 

 and Polynesia we find evidences of a tolerably recent 

 extension of the Malays at the expense of less civilised 

 tribes. 



6. Zoology and Botany. 



The eastern half of Australasia forms one of the great 

 zoological regions of the earth — the Australian — char- 

 acterised by the absence of all the higher and larger 

 forms of mammals, and by the presence of a number of 

 very peculiar types. Its mammalia almost all belong to 

 the marsupials, which are only represented elsewhere by 

 a few opossums in America. Cassowaries, bower-birds, 

 birds -of- paradise, lyre-birds, and other striking genera, 

 are confined to it, as well as numbers of very remarkable 

 parrots, pigeons, and kingfishers, while such widespread 

 and familiar types as vultures, pheasants, and woodpeckers 

 are altogether wanting. The snakes and lizards are 

 numerous and peculiar, and insects and land-shells abound, 

 presenting numberless interesting and beautiful species. 



The western half possesses an abundance of the higher 

 mammals, for the most part common to the Asiatic con- 

 tinent — anthropoid apes, monkeys, the great Telidae, 



