16 



THil ETHNOLOGY OF SOUTH EASTERN ASIA. 

 Shct, I. General physical characteristics of the region, 



In investigating the range and numbers of the different ti ibeg 

 who inhibit Sumatra,* we remarked that the best mode at describ- 

 ing the whole island, would be by considering it as a series of 

 river districts. The ethnological influence of rivers is so great, 

 particularly in rude ages, that they ought to arrest our 'attention 

 before any thing else, when considering the probable directions of 

 » migration and the connections of races. In all parts of the 

 Indian Archipelago, save the most highly civilized and fertile, 

 the^f regulate the distribution of its human inli<.uiianls. It is on 

 their banks only that considerable communities exist, and their 

 courses and ramifications are in general those of the streams of 

 population also. The thinly peopled regions of Ultramdia pre- 

 sent the same phenomenon, and there must have been a time 

 when China and India had no other routes for man through their 

 dense jungle but the rivers, and no population save a succession 

 of petty tribes scattered along these primeval highways of races. 

 It is only in advanced stages of civilization that rivers lose this 

 supreme ethnological importance. The earth passes more and 

 more fully under the dominion of man, natural obstacles to 

 communication are overcome by the growth of arts and the spread 

 of population, and the separate tribes of each river, once perhaps 

 as numerous as its branches, merge, by successive agglomerations, 

 into single nations, whose limits may include many basins and 

 parts of basins. This has taken place to a considerable extent in 

 south eastern Asia, but the influence of its rivers still predominate*, 

 and in order fully to understand the present distribution of its 

 inhabitants, and to assist our enquiries into their primitive connec- 

 tions, it is necessary to advert to them. We must not be understood 

 to give an exclusive, but only the highest, importance to rivers. 

 Different portions of the same basin are sometimes separated by 

 barriers impassable to rude tribes, and ethnic highways often 

 connect adjacent basins. The entire physical geography of a region 

 is the only sound basis for its ethnology. But two distribution of 

 mountains is chiefly important as it determines the size | nd 

 directions of vallies and plains. The drainage embraces the whole 

 disposition of the land and includes the mountains, and, as a general 

 law, liable however to many striking exceptions, the different parts 

 of each basin are more closely connected with each other than 

 with the adjacent basins. 



The nver system of the tonic region is one of the most remark* 

 able in the world. Its unity is as distinctly marked as that of the 

 monosyllabic languages, and its limits are almost exactly coincident 

 with those of the latter. The Irawaui and the Hoang-ho are its 

 great eastern and western members, and between them are the 



• J own. lad. Ucb. Vol. lit; p. 863. 



