'THE BINUA Of' JOHORE. 
245 
immediately obtainable. We reached Pulo Tikong in the course of 
the night and would have arrived in Singapore early next day if the 
wind had not risen and obliged us to anchor. A similar cause de- ✓ 
tained us for some hours at Changie, and it was not until the evening 
that the month’s excursion was brought to a close. Its principal re¬ 
sult has been the elucidation, to some extent, of the geology, geogra¬ 
phy and productions of a portion of the Peninsula previously unvisit¬ 
ed by any European. Amongst the most interesting discoveries, not 
relating to geology, were the finding of the source of the J oh'ore river in 
a high mountain chain nearly in the centre of the country ; the ascertain¬ 
ment of the courses and affluents of the Sidfli, Indau and Rio Formosa; 
the singular and unexpected fact that one river retaining the same name, 
S. Simrong, forms a principal branch of the Indau on the one side and of 
the Rio Formosa on the other, so that there is thus a river communi¬ 
cation between the Straits of Malacca and the China Sea; and lastly 
the equally unexpected fact that the interior of the country visited is in¬ 
habited by a tribe distinct from the Jakuns, and who, as the most south¬ 
ern of the Asiatic aboriginal tribes, as well as on many other ac¬ 
counts, deserve the attention of the possessors of Singapore. Tliis 
people appears to me to have such paramount claims to the exer¬ 
tion of our influence on their behalf, first to free them from the op¬ 
pressive thraldom in which they are kept by the Malays, and then 
to amelioriate them by Christianity and education, that I should 
not consider myself justified in delaying to communicate the impression 
made on my mind during the fortnight I was amongst them. With 
my attention directed to other things, and obliged to be almost con¬ 
tinually in motion, I cannot offer any thing approaching to a com¬ 
plete account of them, and whatever confidence I may have in my ge¬ 
neral impressions and conclusions, I fear that I may have fallen Into 
some mistakes, while I am certain that many traits necessary to a 
correct estimate of the tribe, both ethnologically and morally, can only 
be discovered by a longer sojouru amongst them under more favour¬ 
able circumstances. Some apology is also due for the rough manner 
in which my remarks have been thrown together. They have been 
written during indisposition brought on by the fatigue and exposure 
of the journey. I thought it better to attempt to do so under all 
disadvantages while the impressions of my visit were quite fresh. In 
subsequent contributions I propose to give a geographical and geo¬ 
logical description of all the places which I visited, with a detailed 
narrative of the journey, and this will enable me to supply some of 
the deficiencies of the present paper. 
