228 ON THE MALAYAN AND POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES A N't) RACES, 
Within the Malayan Archipelago the Malay and Javanese langu¬ 
ages have been communicated to others by conquest, settlement, or 
colonization, and commerce; while to Madagascar, and the islands 
of the Pacific, they have been communicated by the accidents of 
tempest-driven pram or fleets oi praus. 
The insular character of the whole region over which a Malayan 
language has been disseminated, and the periodical winds prevailing 
within it, which on a superficial view, appear obstacles, are, in truth, 
the true causes of the dissemination ; for, had the region in question 
been a continent, stretching north and south like America, or lain 
within the latitudes of variable wind and storms, no such dispersion 
of one language could have taken place. 
Such is the most rational explanation I can render of a fact in 
the history of our race, mysterious without explanation, and won¬ 
derful enough even with it. 
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