32 THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE I5DUM A RCHIPEL AOO. 



habit*, to congregate, and to attain constant supplies of food and 

 other benefits of civilisation. The tribes of the sea hoard are 

 almost uniformly savage, half animal, often half starved, ichthyo- 

 phagi. After the whole land has been pervaded by civilisation, 

 there is still a strong distinction between the inland and seaboard 

 characteristics,-- the latter however being shared by the cities and 

 marts on the highways and at the foci of the interior. The former 

 are generally more purely native, and possess a much higher 

 moral power. We do not everywhere find the great contrast that 

 is displayed by the Semitic race in its two developments^ — in 

 Sidon, Tyre, Carthage, Babylon, and probably in Aden, great art 

 and luxury, — in the plains of Idumea a Job, in Palestine a David, 

 and over all the Arabian table land a fervid poetical and religious 

 spirit, a bold and earnest barbaric life, and an intense scorn of the 

 trading towns and their corruption?. But the Archipelago has its 

 contrasts too, and none are more striking than that of the two 

 capita) national developments of the Malay u race, one on the lake 

 of Sinkara amongst the Sumatran mountain*, and the other on the 

 shore of the great highway of the Malacca Strait, the second 

 historical, the first partly so, and both long since arrested and 

 destroyed. 



Having endeavoured to lay a good geographical basis for our 

 ethnology, we may next proceed to consider the different facta 

 involved in human developments in the Eastern regions, and to 

 ascertain which spring immediately from our common nature and 

 are repeated or reproduced sponraneously in different countries and 

 times, and which have an ethnic character, derived from some 

 peculiarity in the region or race where they arose. The first Rlep 

 in thit? direction will be to investigate each peat ethnic character- 

 istic by it*eh", following it through all the tribes in the region, and 

 thus gaining a comprehensive idea of the modes and varieties of its 

 developments, and, as far as possible, of their causes and relations. 

 The facts observed in the being and life of each separate race, are 

 now to be viewed together as revelations of the same principles, 

 illustrating each oilier had tb* nature of ihe common human ten- 

 dencies in which they original* . It is obvious that this connected 

 and comparative knowledge of many varieties of each ethnic trait, 

 is an essential preliminary to all satisfactory enquiries into the 

 histories of particular races. Without it we cannot judge of the 

 weight and bearing of a characteri: ic, or combination of character- 

 ifiria?, which we may find in any race that becomes the subject of 

 our special investigation. A structural form, a word, or a cuatouo, 

 that seems to group together Beveral tribes of the Archipelago and 

 to separate them from other races, loses this segregative value 

 taken by itself when wo find it in distant regions. 



After giving general descriptions of the physical, mental and 

 linguistic traits, religions, manners and customs of the races of 

 Eastern Asia and Oceanica, noticing the more marked resemblances 



