B A T A V I A. 233 
ously and perversely displayed in the fascinating verse of 
the other ! 
The next class of the inhabitants of Batavia, which I have 
briefly to notice, is the IMalays ; a race of men which is found 
to inhabit the coasts of most of the numerous islands that are 
scattered over the great Eastern Ocean ; while the inland 
parts of the same islands are inhabited by a distinct class of 
people bearing, on every island, certain marks of a common 
origin, and an affinity more or less with the Hindoo character 
These circumstances not only prove that the Malays were 
not the original possessors of the islands on which the}^ are 
found, but that the Hindoos must have been considerable 
navigators at a period antecedent to all history. Indeed all 
the Oriental nations seem to have sprung from two grand 
stocks, the Hindoos and the Tartars. The Javanese evi- 
dently derive their origin from the former, and the Malays as 
obviously from the latter. The change in the character of 
this people, now so different from that of the Tartars, has 
most probably been occasioned by change of situation and 
local circumstances. The religion of Mahomet, forced upon 
them by the Arabs, may in itself be considered perhaps as suf- 
ficient, without any other cause, to have operated this change. 
Added, however, to this, they may have been driven by ne- 
cessity to become pirates, and to seek that subsistence on 
the sea, which the more numerous and powerful owners of 
the islands denied them on shore. At all events, their situa- 
tion and their circumstances seem still to compel them to 
retort on modern navigators those cruelties and oppressive 
ir II 
