16 THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



in some fact that is now happening. Ethnic operations are slowly 

 going on in our presence which must have the most important 

 influence on the future condition of all its races. Social change*, 

 movements of families to new localities, hundreds of varieties of 

 intermixture of blood, the slow engraftment of foreign habits, 

 ideas and languages on preexisting ones, the still more subtle and 

 complex influence exerted by the mere presence of foreign colonist* 

 and traders more powerful and civilised than any indigenous race, 

 all this is in progress before our eyes, and its right observation and 

 description will supply a great body of ethnic phenomena capable 

 of illustrating all past times, and without which we cannot duly 

 estimate the whole bearings of the facts that our archaic researches 

 may bring to light. From the great extent and varied character 

 of the insular region, it presents remarkable combinations of open 

 and secluded districts, so thai while every successive foreign influ- 

 ence has been spread over large tracts, no stage of ethnic develop- 

 ment that has ever existed in it, is wholly obliterated. The 

 animal life of the earliest savage tribes and the Uterary and religions 

 culture of the Hindu era, are now contemporary with Arabic and 

 European civilisations. In no other region does the present so 

 fully preserve the past, and in none therefore does the observation 

 of the one offer so broad and safe a foundation for a knowledge of 

 the other. 



The influences of physical geography are amongst the most 

 important of all those tluit enter into ethnology. It is by these 

 that the natural tendency of population to radiate on ail sides 

 from a nucleus or centre is checked, and particular paths and 

 directions given to h. It is by these that man, although essentially 

 j one, physically and mentally, is maintained, even if he were not 

 originally moulded, in all the vurieties which give rise to an ethno- 

 logy, li the whole habitable globe had been as uniform in surface 

 ana climate as some of the great plateaus are, there might hav*> 

 been several human tribes but the} would have been physically 

 alike, and the facility of mutual intercourse would have prevented 

 any considerable anil permanent deviations in intellectual culture 

 and manners, or even in language. By the actual disposition and 

 Eiriii'tiirn of :ic land, the diversity and consequent development <>t 

 mankind have been as effectually secured as if many families had 

 been created in every region, and each been sent forth provided with 

 a distinct inspired "language. While man remains in a state of 

 ethnic infancy, as he still does in many places, every mountain 

 valley becomes the cradle of a tribe and the nursery of a language. 

 Jn regions like those of Eastern Asia every geographical ex- 

 tension of a tribe, every separation of families, is equivalent, in 

 this era, to a new creation. The growth of communities beyond a 

 few families is impossible save in rare spots which confine wander- 

 ings within narrow limits, and at the same lime favour the growth 

 of population. Whether therefore there waa originally but a 



