TRIBES INHABITING PEKING AND PROVINCE WELLESLEV. 8/ 



with the natives, and it would ultimately, in a large measure, dis- 

 place the older dialects of the hitter. When, at a comparatively 

 modern period, the Malays from Sumatra colonised the Peninsula, 

 their language became everywhere current, and the older dialects 

 are fast perishing before it. 



The Malay* (Malayu.) 



The Javanese preceded the Malays as the first dominant mari- 

 time people in the later age of Indonesian civilization, and founded 

 Settlements in the Peninsula as well as in Sumatra. But in the 

 era immediately prior to that of European supremacy, the Malays 

 of Menangkabau, extending their conquests to the sea on both sides 

 of Sumatra, became the leading and most enterprising naval people 

 of the Archipelago. They planted Settlements of their own, or 

 formed quarters on almost • every island and on every navigable 

 river. 



The Peninsula, as far North as Tennasserim, passed into their 

 hands, Malacca becoming the leading maritime State in the Eas- 

 tern seas. 



There has been considerable intermixture of blood between the 

 Malays and the Binuas of the interior with the various foreigners 

 who settled in their ports — Chinese, Southern Indians ( Klings 

 chiefly), Arabs, Portuguese, Burmese, Teguans, Japanese, as well 

 as with Javanese, Bugis, Achiuese, Dayaks, and other Eastern 

 Islanders. Besides the normal variety of characters observable in 

 every race, the maritime Malays have been further modified by this 

 intermixture. The most common type of the least improved 

 Malay is one of the coarsest of the Archipelago. It resembles the 

 Siamese more than the sea-board Burman, shewing a similar flat- 

 ness and expansion both of the crown and the back of the head, 

 the meeting of the two planes being more angular than convex. 

 When viewed in front, it bulges out laterally beyond the forehead. 

 The nose is low and the lips thick. The lower part of the face is 

 sometimes prognathous. The person is broad and squat, the trunk 

 long, the limbs short and thick. The Malay varies from this lowest 

 type coarse Mongolian with a Negro tendency to the finest form 

 which the Turanian skull can assume without ceasing to be Tura- 

 nian. The head becomes nearly oval, the occiput rounded, the 



