m 
REMARKS ON THE ETHNOLOGY &C* 
and dead between us and so much of reality will as of old flow 
like music, expressive and suggestive; definite in its strain, while 
revealing, not hiding, the infinite fullness which nature yet holds 
for man. 
Our knowledge of the languages of the Archipelago is so par¬ 
tial and incomplete, that the efforts of all who desire that its 
existing condition and past history should be understood, ought, 
in the first instance, to be zealously directed to the acquisition of 
copious vocabularies. Even of the languages of the leading races 
we are, after a long period of close intercourse with them, most 
discreditably ignorant. We are not even in possession of more 
than a half probably of the Malay, while of the aboriginal languages 
of the Malay Peninsula, that is of the ante-Malayan tribes, we 
have only a few specimens. We shall merely guess at the history 
ef the Archipelago, until the dialects of these and all the other 
tribes inhabiting it, have been collected and compared. It is great¬ 
ly to be regretted that some of those who could co-operate in the 
most effectual manner in this work, do not appear to be sufficiently 
impressed with the paramount importance of the languages of the 
Archipelago, and the advantage of making public every fresh acquisi¬ 
tion. Several works, including a translation of the New Testament, 
have been printed in one of the Dyak dialects, of which we are not¬ 
withstanding without vocabulary, dictionary, or grammar. 
