﻿J. T. Thomson. — Tlie Whence of the Maori. 37 



that lias been most easily accessible from China and Ultra-India. Hence, the 

 Negro is supplanted in Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, etc. Physiognomists 

 inform us that ISTegro features disappear in the fourth remove ; thus, though 

 the mothei's of the present natives of these regions have been Negros, their 

 forms and colour are now no more. The partial remnants of this race are only 

 to be found in sequestered spots, such as in the mountains of Keddah and 

 Cochin China, and in the Andaman and Philippine Islands, as collateral pi-oofs 

 of their former wide extension and pre-occupation. 



Now, applying the same process to a similarly situated region, viz., the 

 peninsula of Hindostan, whose aboriginal inhabitants have also been proved 

 to have been of the Negro race, we have only to trace the descent of the ener- 

 getic races of the trans and sub-Himalaya mountains on the tropical plains of 

 Coromandel and Malabar, where the Negro mother would transmit her language 

 through her offspring, till the mixed race had decreased, by the pressure of 

 superior races, to the few fragments of which indications only are now to be 

 discovered, as before stated. 



Again, why have the races of the Indian Archipelago, while modified so 

 much in physical form by the inroads of the Mongolian, accepted so much of 

 literature and language from the advanced hordes of the Caucasian — such as 

 form the Avian and Semitic tribes. This may be answered from present and 

 historic experience. The language of China is harsh and monosyllabic, and 

 its literature hieroglyphic, totally adverse to the genius of the soft dissyllabic 

 and polysyllabic tongues of this part of the Tropics ; while, on the contrary, 

 the language and literature of Hindostan and other western parts accord with 

 the system. Another cause may be adduced, in the case of which we have 

 given examples, which makes a people borrow from the higher rather than the 

 lower adjacent races. Hence, since archaic times, the most advanced races of 

 the Archipelago have borrowed from the west, nothing from the east of Asia. 

 Further, their politicians, historians, accountants, and arithmeticians, were of 

 Hindoo or Arabic origin. Thus we account for the large impress of the litera- 

 tiire of these races in the Indian Archipelago as formerly demonstrated. 

 Indeed, in the histories and traditions of the Malays, their kings and piinces 

 have always been derived from Roum (Persia) or Hindostan ; while the 

 Chinese in the same histories, when noticed, are done so with contempt and 

 derision. Thus, in the Sijara Malay u it is related that for certain diseases 

 with which the Emperors of China were afflicted the most effectual cure was 

 the urina regis of Malacca. Further, the superstitions implanted in the minds 

 of the Asianesians are Hindoo — that is, so far as they have not been put down 

 by Mohammedanism. 



Under the light of the above facts and deductions we may now be said to 

 be prc])arcd to enter into the prime inquiry of this paper, viz,, the Whence of 



E 



