chap, xx.] THE OLD PORTUGUESE. 471 



strange half-civilized half-savage lazy people, who seem 

 to be a mixture of at least three races, Portuguese, Malay, 

 and Papuan or Ceramese, with an occasional cross of 

 Chinese or Dutch. The Portuguese element decidedly 

 predominates in the old Christian population, as indicated 

 by features, habits, and the retention of many Portuguese 

 words in the Malay, which is now their language. They 

 have a peculiar style of dress which they wear among 

 themselves, a close-fitting white shirt with black trousers, 

 and a black frock or upper shirt. The women seem to 

 prefer a dress entirely black. On festivals and state 

 occasions they adopt the swallow-tail coat, chimney- 

 pot hat, and their accompaniments, displaying all the 

 absurdity of our European fashionable dress. Though 

 now Protestants, they preserve at feasts and weddings the 

 processions and music of the Catholic Church, curiously 

 mixed up with the gongs and dances of the aborigines of 

 the country. Their language has still much more Por- 

 tuguese than Dutch in it, although they have been in close 

 communication with the latter nation for more than two 

 hundred and fifty years ; even many names of birds, trees 

 and other natural objects, as well as many domestic terms, 

 being plainly Portuguese. 1 This people seems to have had 

 a marvellous power of colonization, and a capacity for 



1 The following are a few of the Portuguese words iu common use by 

 the Malay-speaking natives of Amboyna and the other Molucca islands : 



