they mii<t he taken as allowing the proportions, rathur than tlie exact 
immbprsj which probably exceed these totals. 
The enuineratioii ot* the Malays aritl Chinese at the Colony*B last 
Census (1881) gave precisely the same nimiber for each race, viz, : — 
Chinese, lT4;i27 ; ^Malays, 174,326. In the Native States it is certain 
that the Slaluys out-number the Cliinese* and therefore the Jlalay 
race is still first in the Peninsula^ so far as rcf^ards numberR. But to 
judge from the advance made by tbc Chinese in the Straits at the last 
Cenfius, the^ic latter will soon take the lead in nmnbers, as they have done 
for some time in most other respects. 
lit'lttjtoii.- — The Malays, indudiiir]^ even some of tlic border Sam- 
Hams in tbe North, universally profess the Mahomcdaii religion. Until 
nbout the year 125CI, they were pagans, or followed some corrupted form 
of Hindu iilolati-y. Sultan M ahmi'!) Shah, who reigned ovt-r the Ma- 
lacca dominions in the iJitb century, was the first Prince who adopted the 
Mahome(bin faith, and spread it during his Um*^ rvl^n of 57 years. His 
rule extended over the neighbouring island? (t( Linjjfgu and Bentan, 
together with Jobor, Patuni, K^dah* and Pt^rak, on the eoasta of the 
Peninsula, and, it i« suppDStnl, over several distriet.^ in Sumatra. The 
adoption of Islam thus spread rapidly iu the Peninsula; and the Portuguese 
found all Straits Mahtys were of that faith at tlie begiiminj3j of the 10th 
centnry, while a lur^^e portion of South-east Malaya still remained pagan, 
Liuit/ifafff.—T^he Mahiy language ts the nirwt irapfu-taut of the many 
dialects composing the Malayan section of the Malayo-Pulynestan class 
of languages. The area over which it i;< .spoken comprises the Peninsula 
of Malacca with the ailjaeent islaud.s (the Kio-Liugga Arehijjekgo), the 
greater part of tbe coast dfstricts of Sumatra and Borneo, the Moluccas, 
the sca])Orts of Java, aud^ to a less extent, those of Celebes, ijcc. It is the 
general merliuui of commnnication throughout the Arcdiipelago, from 
Sumatra to the Ptiilip[nne Islantls - and it bad already become so nearly 
400 years ago, when the Portuguese first appeared in these ]>arts. There 
seems, before that time, to have been iio sucli written language sis Mould 
correspond with the wide extent of spoken ^lalay : and no moiunncntal 
records have been found with inscriptions written iu Malay, before the 
adoption of the Arabic character. 
It is the more remarkable that ^lal^iy, of all the Suraatran languageri, 
should have possessed no writing of its own, since the Rcjangs, Battaks 
and tbcBugis in Celebes possessed, and still usa, an indigenous character, 
said to he Cambojan in type. With the Maliouiedau conversion, the Perso- 
Arabic alphabet \ym introduced amon^ the Malays, ilalay is essentially, 
with few^ exceptions, a dissyllabic language. *From the Hindus, who 
appear to have settled in Sumatra and Java in the 4th century, the 
native populations received into their language a very large number of 
Sanskrit terms : and since the 13th century, a large number of Arabic 
terms have crept iu through the religious influence of Islam, Is'o real 
distinetiou can be ma do botweeu Jlifffi Malay and Lo>c M'tint/, as with 
