10 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
where. Here, too, we have abundant examples of the 
overflow of the vast population of China. In almost 
every city and town in the Archipelago, from Malacca to 
the Aru Islands, and from Manila to Australia, the 
Chinese form a by no means unimportant part of the 
population,—nay, in some places, the bulk of it. In Java 
the vast ruins of Bora-bodor and other great temples 
testify to a Brahminical occupation previous to the 
Mohammedan conquest of the country, and similar remains, 
though to a much smaller extent, occur in Sumatra and 
Borneo. And, finally, throughout the whole Archipelago 
and Polynesia we find evidences of a tolerably recent 
extension of the Malays at the expense of less civilised 
tribes. 
6. Zoology and Botany. 
The eastern half of Australasia forms one of the great 
zoological regions of the earth—the Australian—char¬ 
acterised by the absence of all the higher and larger 
forms of mammals, and by the presence of a number of 
very peculiar types. Its mammalia almost all belong to 
the marsupials, which are only represented elsewhere by 
a few opossums in America. Cassowaries, bower-birds, 
birds-of-paradise, lyre-birds, and other striking genera, 
are confined to it, as well as numbers of very remarkable 
parrots, pigeons, and kingfishers, while such widespread 
and familiar types as vultures, pheasants, and woodpeckers 
are altogether wanting. The snakes and lizards are 
numerous and peculiar, and insects and land-shells abound, 
presenting numberless interesting and beautiful species. 
The western half possesses an abundance of the higher 
mammals, for the most part common to the Asiatic con¬ 
tinent — anthropoid apes, monkeys, the great Felidae, 
