LANGUAGES AND RACES. 
221 
to the manners or history of the Malay people, to imagine the pro¬ 
bability of a piratical fleet, or a fleet carrying one of those migra¬ 
tions, of which there are examples on record, being tempest-driven, 
like a single prau. Such a fleet, well-equipped, well-stocked, and 
well-manned, would not only be fitter for the long and perilous vo¬ 
yage, but reach Madagascar in a better condition than a fishing or 
trading boat. It may seem, then, not an improbable supposition, 
that it was through one or more fortuitous adventures of this des¬ 
cription, that the language of Madagascar received its influx of Ma¬ 
layan. 
Respecting the probable era of such adventures, we have just one 
faint ray of light. With the Malayan, there came in a few words of 
Sanscrit, such as are popular in the Malay and Javanese. From 
tliis it may be fair to infer, that the chance migrations I have sup¬ 
posed, whether they had before taken place earlier or not, may have 
taken place, at all events, as early as the epoch of the connection of 
the Hindoos with the Indian Archipelago,—a connection, the com¬ 
mencement of which cannot, I think, be placed later than the birth 
of Christ. 
I have, finally, to attempt an explanation of the manner in which 
Malayan words may have found their way.into the languages of the 
Pacific. The proportion of Malayan words in the Polynesian, judg¬ 
ing by the New Zealand dialect, is more than 20 in 1000, while in 
that of the Sandwich Islands it does not exceed 17- Except in 
these few words, there is nothing in common between those who 
speak the Polynesian. Their races are different, and their langu¬ 
ages distinct. 
Conquest and settlement by the Malays, Javanese, or other tribes 
of the Archipelago, had probably, therefore, nothing to do with the 
dissemination of the Malayan in the languages of the Pacific. I 
have no doubt, then, that, as in the case of the language of Mada¬ 
gascar, it was the work of tempest driven pram or fleets, and gra¬ 
dually, and step by step, from island to island, transmitted in the 
course of ages, to the Sandwich Islands north of the equator, to 
New Zealand south of it, and as far as Easter Island. 
