INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS. 239 



I shall content myself under this head, therefore, 

 with saving that I do not believe the natural intel- 

 lectual capacities of the Malayo- Polynesian race to 

 be much inferior to that of any other in the world. 

 Whether we consider their ancient empires in the 

 East, the old kingdoms of Java or Sumatra, of Ma- 

 lacca or Singapore, or their other states in Borneo, 

 Celebes, the Moluccas, and other places, or examine 

 the political and religious institutions of Tahiti, of 

 Tongatabu, or of the Sandwich Islands, we shall see 

 every where springing up, among people of this race, 

 laws, customs, and social establishments, evincing 

 no slight power of mind in their founders, and no 

 mean capacities for the arts of government and the 

 institution and preservation of social order among 

 the people at large. One thing is very striking in 

 this race, which is their quick appreciation and 

 ready reception of all improvements. In the Indian 

 Archipelago, this has been shewn by the reception 

 among the people of Java and the neighbouring 

 islands of the arts and religion of the ancient Hin- 

 doos, which was probably a great improvement on 

 their previous rude superstition, and subsequently 

 by the facility of their conversion to the tenets of 

 Islam, an equally great advance upon their Hin- 

 dooism. In the Pacific, I have only to recall to the 

 reader's mind the easy conversion of the islanders to 

 Christianity, and their rapid attainments in the arts 

 of reading, writing, and other means of enlighten- 

 ment, and ask him in what part of the world similar 



