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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND CONSTITUTION. 245 
Malays of the Menangkabau states. But we cannot infer from that, 
that they descend from these Malays; as we know by history and tradi¬ 
tion that they were in the Peninsula before them; and that the Menang¬ 
kabau Malays descend from JaJkuns by their mothers side, as we have 
• seen when speaking of the arrival of Tu Puttair ; which explains 
sufficiently the resemblance we perceive in the Malays to the Jakuns. 
It is really very difficult to discover what occured many centuries 
ago among a people so entirely ignorant that each individual knows 
scarcely what occured during the life of his own father; and where 
there is no writing or any memorial to record the facts of the time 
past. 
In such an incertitude I will beware to combat any opinion; but I 
will say, at least, that if we consider these Jakuns as descendants of 
Tartars, we must admit too, that they are much degenerated. 
When Dr. Ivan physician to the French Embassy to China passed 
by Malacca in 1845 I intended to show to him the skulls of some dead 
Jakuns, as I knew his peculiar knowledge in natural history; and as 
he has collected skulls of very numerous civilised nations and wild 
tribes, I doubted not that the inspection of the Jakun’s skull would 
have enabled him to say from what branch of mankind they spring, 
or at least to give satisfactory probalities on that subject; but the 
difficulty of procuring such a specimen prevented me from a means 
of information, from which I had hoped much light might have been 
thrown upon the subject. 
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND CONSTITUTION. 
# 
There is a remarkable difference in the physical appearance of 
the several classes of Jakuns. Those of Malacca are generally as tall 
as the common run of Europeans; they are more dark than any other 
of the wild tribes that fell under my inspection; and in which res¬ 
pect I do not see much difference between them and the more dark 
of the indo-Portuguese of Malacca. I have already said that I have 
generally found a peculiar resemblance between these two classes of 
men; this agreement is principally to be observed in the conforma¬ 
tion of the arms and of the legs, and in the features of the face; but 
