OCCASIONAL NOTES. Alege 
in the further East, occurs in an article on “ Burma, Past 
and Present,’’ in the Quarterly Review for January, 1886.—EbD. 
“ Assuming a descent in remote ages of the nations occu- 
pying the Indo-Chinese region from beyond the great plateau, 
perhaps most of them through China, we must assign to the 
Malays (if they are to be included) the earliest date. They 
seem to have left upon the continent as their nearest kin the 
Tsiams, or people of Champa, in the extreme south-east, if 
these were not rather a reflux of colonization from the islands. 
To an early wave of migration southward perhaps belong also 
the Méns (Talaings, as the Burmese have taught us to style 
them), that is, the people of Pegu, whom some have supposed, 
owing to linguistic indications, to have found their way south 
through India itself; then the Khmer, or Cambojans, occupy- 
ing the lower valley and delta of the Mekong ; and the Anam, 
or people of Cochin China. Then come the MMramma, or 
Burman race, apparently descending the Irawaddy, pressing 
before them the Mons into the delta, the Khyens and like 
tribes into the adjoining mountains. One great branch of the 
Burman race, by themselves reckoned the elder, passed over 
the mountains to the shores of the Bay of Bengal, shores 
which, according to their traditions, they found occupied by 
Bilis or Rakkas; that is, by cannibal monsters, from whom 
in after days the country got its name of Rakain or Aracan. 
Later still, perhaps, succeeded the great family of the Lao, 
Thai, or Shans, who have stiil congeners in Southern China, 
and who occupied the plateau of Yunnan, the middle basin of 
the Mekong, and the upper part of the Menam. In latter 
days this race has flowed back upon the Upper Irawaddy, even 
to the Brahmaputra, and has spread south to the coasts of the 
Malay Peuinsula and of Siam ; the kingdom bearing the latter 
name having been established by a branch of the race. 
As usual, the course of occupation has mainly followed 
the line of the great rivers, those highways of the early world ; 
and their valleys and deltas have become the seat of the more 
civilized monarchies. Thus the Burmese still occupy the 
Irawaddy basin, and the coast-plains of Aracan. Sixty years 
ago, the whole race were united under one native monarchy. 
The latest of an intermittent series of events, since then, has 
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