AND GEOLOGY OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 
87 
Although the mediterranean sea that washes the western shores of 
the Peninsula is the highway between three European colonies planted 
on it, we remain ignorant of the greater part of its interior. The 
very facility of exploring it would almost appear to have checked the 
spirit of adventure. Accessible by every river along a coast of near¬ 
ly two thousand miles, and intersected in many parts by frequented 
paths, it yet offers to the spectator from the Malacca Straits the 
singular phenomenon of a land whose alluvial shores have long been 
as familiar to us as those of our native country, while of the moun¬ 
tains that rise beyond, the very names, with a few exceptions, have never 
been heard, and we know them only as we see them, opaque misty pro¬ 
tuberances breaking the level of the eastern horizon, and revealing the 
existence of an inland region wrapped in all the mystery and attrac¬ 
tiveness of the unknown. The only authentic description that can be 
given of the Peninsula must therefore be confined to its exterior. 
How far our imperfect knowledge of even this, combined with some 
facts that have been gathered during excursions inland at a few lo¬ 
calities, may enable us to form some notion of the general character 
of the interior will be seen presently. 
The western coast of the Isthmus is hilly, much and deeply in¬ 
dented, and acquires a peculiar character from the broad and contin¬ 
uous zone of islands, known as the Mergui Archipelago, to which we 
have already alluded. Most of the islands are bold, and one of them, 
St, Matthew, rises to the height of 3,000 feet. The Isthmus itself is 
occupied by numerous high hill ranges, which have the same general 
southerly direction. Along the sea borders considerable tracts of 
flat alluvial land occur, the best known of which is the large plain of 
Tenasserim. 
In the Bay of of Phunga immediately to the north of Junk-ceylore 
numerous massive rocks rise to heights varying from 200 to 500 feet. 
From Junk-ceylon to the Langkawf group, the coasts of the main¬ 
land and islands, still exposed to the full force of the Bengal sea, 
are broken, and frequently rocky and precipitous. The high and 
perpendicular limestone rocks, with their deep excavations pillared 
with colossal stalactites, and with their summits crowned with dense 
