THE INDIAK ATI Clll PEL A GO. 
n 
frequenting the islands for their peculiar productions, awaken¬ 
ing a taste for their manufactures in the inhabitants, settling 
amongst them, introducing their arts and religion, partially com¬ 
municating these ancl a little of their manners and habits to their 
disciples, but neither by much intermarriage altering their generaf 
physical character, nor by moral influence obliterating their ancient 
superstitions, their comparative simplicity and robustness of charac¬ 
ter, and their freedom from the effeminate vanity which probably 
then, as in later times, distinguished their teachers. At a compa¬ 
ratively recent period, Islamism supplanted Hinduism in most of 
the communities which had grown up under the influence of the 
latter, but it had still less modifying operation; and, amongst the 
great bulk of the people, the conversion from a semi'Hindu con¬ 
dition to that of Mahomedanism was merely formal. Their intel¬ 
lects, essentially simple and impatient of discipline and abstract 
contemplation, could as little appreciate the scholastic refinements of 
the one religion, as the complex and elaborate mythological ma¬ 
chinery and psycological subtleties of the other. While the Ma¬ 
lay of the nineteenth century exhibits in his manner, and in ma¬ 
ny of his formal usages and habits, the influence which Indians and 
Arabs have exerted on his race, he remains, physically and mo¬ 
rally, in all the broader and deeper traits of nature, what he was 
when he first entered the Archipelago; and even on his manners, 
usages, and habits, influenced as they have been, his distinctive 
original character is still very obviously impressed. 
We cannot do more than allude to the growth of population 
and civilization in those localities which, from their extent of fer¬ 
tile soil or favorable commercial position, rose into eminence, and 
* ' 
became the scats of powerful nations. But it must be borne in 
mind that, although these localities were varied and wide spread, 
they occupied but a small portion of the entire surface of the 
Archipelago, and that the remainder continued to he thinly inha¬ 
bited by uncivilized tribes, communities, or wandering families. 
Prevented, until a very recent date, by stubborn prejudices and 
an overweening sense of superiority, from understanding and in¬ 
fluencing the people of the Archipelago, the European donfina- 
tions have not directly affected them at all; and the indirect ope¬ 
ration of the new power, and mercantile and political policies, which 
