GENERAL FEATURES OF MALAYSIA 1 9 



3. The Malay Race and Language. 



Of the two chief peoples of the Eastern Archipelago^ — 

 the Malays and the Papuans — the Malays are decidedly 

 the more highly developed, the more numerous and im- 

 portant. They have spread their language, their domestic 

 animals, and some of their customs, widely throughout the 

 Pacific and Indian Oceans, in many instances to islands 

 where they have effected no sort of change in the 

 physical or moral characteristics of the indigenous in- 

 habitants. This wide diffusion of Malay influence is an 

 extraordinary phenomenon, for the Malay race itself has 

 by no means such an extensive range, although it has 

 been by some supposed that all the brown tribes with 

 straight or nearly straight hair, generally termed Poly- 

 nesians, which are widely scattered in the tropical and 

 sub-tropical South Sea Islands, belong to this division of 

 mankind. Since Wilhelm von Humboldt's studies of the 

 old Kawi language of Java, we know that the dominant 

 race in Madagascar and the Comoro group also belongs 

 to the Malay linguistic family. Hence has originated 

 the common statement that this race has spread from 

 the Comoros to Easter Island, and occupies the area 

 between 45° E. long, and 110° W. long., or more than 

 half the circumference of the globe. 



But this view as to the extent of the Malayan peoples 

 is held by many modern writers to be quite erroneous, 

 and they accordingly give the Malays a much more 

 restricted habitation. Mr. A. E. Wallace has always 

 maintained that the brown Polynesians are really quite 

 distinct from the Malays, and, except in colour (though 

 in this point he is at variance with most authorities), 



