128 conx. — Colonization t 



of Keddah, Ligor, Sangora, Daloong, and Patau!, 

 and the Malayan stales of Calantan, Ti inganoo, Pe- 

 rak, Salengore, and Johore, do not mulum above 

 200,000 son Is, as an indigenous population. There 

 may be perhaps from fifteen to twenty thousand Chi- 

 nese* who arc seldom permanent settlers. Tradition, 

 bistoi 'v, and architectural and other monuments Ibr 

 the past, and actual observation for the present, uould 

 sufficiently prove that tliere are hot few obstacles op- 

 posed in this region to the increase of the human race. 



Keddah and Patau i were both populous countries 

 before they fell under the Siamese dominion, but the 

 population of the latter has (alien from one hundred 

 to ten thousand souls. Were population to ad* 

 vance from this date over tlie whole of die tract in 

 question at the same rate that, as far as returns go, it 

 appears now doing in Provinee Wellesley, it might l>e 

 fulS v peopled in an assignable period. The cause of 

 (he depopulation it bus suffered can easily lie traced 

 to the despotic and barbarous rule of disjointed, *»s 

 well as concent rate* I, native governments which in- 

 evitably tends to shorten the mean duration of hu- 

 man life by debasing the moral and weakening Ihe 

 physical energies and capabilities; — to foreign invasions 

 including those of the Portuguese; to constant inter- 

 nal predatory warfare; to the diversion of trade into 

 new channels and into more expert hands; to change* 

 in religion, and lastly to a circumstance, without 

 which some of these causes might not have so widely 

 operated, the facility for emigration afforded by the 

 numerous rivers and creeks which intersect the 

 country. 



It may safely be predicted of this region that its 

 regeneration will never lie efleeted by a native go- 

 vernment. However just the principle of population 

 defined by Mai thus as an abstract one, may be ; and 



