Skclch of the Ma/aj/an Countries. 29 



and New Guinea ; the only instance of a Malay government 

 in the interior of the islands, being presented by the state 

 of Menangkabau in Sumatra. The dialects of the Malay 

 tongue, have, in the course of ages, undergone changes which 

 render them, with respect to the purposes of intercourse, distinct 

 languages: yet, when strictly examined, the Maldi/u nation may 

 be regarded as one people, speaking one language, and preserving 

 the same character and customs, though spread over so wide a 

 space. The descendants of the ancient Hindu inhabitants of the 

 islands, on the contrary, have languages peculiar to themselves ; 

 and are governed by their own respective laws and institutions. 



" There is something in the Malayan character," observes the 

 subject of this memoir, in his introduction to Dr. Leyden's trans- 

 lation of the Malay Annals, "which is congenial to British minds, 

 and which leaves an impression, very opposite to that which a 

 much longer intercourse has given of the more subdued and cul- 

 tivated natives of Hindustan. Retaining much of that boldness 

 which marks the Tartar stock, from whence they are supposed to 

 have sprung, they have acquired a softness, not less remarkable in 

 their manners, than in their language. Few people attend more 

 to the courtesies of society. Among many of them, traces of a 

 higher state of civilization are obvious, and where opportunity has 

 been afforded, even in our own times, they have been found capa- 

 ble of receiving a high state of intellectual improvement." 



Java and Sumatra having been successively the seats of Sir 

 Stamford Raffles's authority in the Indian Archipelago, will each 

 claim a more detailed notice, as we proceed. But it will be useful 

 to complete this sketch of the Malayan countries, by some par- 

 ticulars of the other two larger islands of the group, with which 

 Europeans have been principally connected; — the islands of Borneo 

 and Celebes. 



Borneo, it has been remarked, embanks the navigable pathway 

 between the eastern and western hemispheres, and lying conti- 

 guous to China and Japan, the most populous regions of the globe, 

 its inhabitants were once engaged in extensive commercial rela- 

 tions with those countries. It stretches from the 4th degree of 

 south to the 8th of north latitude, and from cast longitude 150' 



