A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language : with a preliminary ...

DISSERTATION. ccxlv
the coconut, and the sugar-cane; and they instructed the
natives in a more convenient system of numeration than that
which they had before used. This is probably the sura of what
they accomplished. They introduced no useful domestic
animal; they introduced neither corn, nor pulse, nor cotton.
They did not instruct the natives in the fabrication of iron, or
the use of any metal, nor instruct them in the working of any
textile fabric. They taught them neither law, nor religion, nor
letters.
There remain two difficult questions for solution, respecting
which rational conjectures only can be offered :—How did the
Malayan languages,
Conjectures and those that spoke them, find
the^ii^tro? their way to the far isles of the Pacific, inhabited by
theM'Sayanthe Polynesian race, the nearest of them 2500, and
into tSr^ the most remote 6500 miles, distant from the nearest
Polynesian, p^-j^^ q£ ^^iq Archipclago ?—and how comes one race,
speaking one tongue, to occupy, exclusively, most of the islands
scattered over the vast tract of ocean which lies, in one direction,
between the Sandwich islands and New Zealand, and in another,
between the Fijis and Easter island ? I shall attempt to solve
these questions in the order in which I have stated them.
It has already been seen that the Malayan nations, or two
leading tribes of Sumatra and Java, have for ages been pushing
their enterprises, whether commercial or predatory, to the Phi-
lippine islands, to the Moluccas, to New Guinea, and even to
the northern shores of Australia. We find them, therefore, on the
extreme eastern confines of the Archipelago, from which they
might find their way into the Northern Pacific through the
Philippines, or into the Southern between New Guinea and
Australia; or into either of them through the Molucca islands.
They, most probably, did find their way into the Pacific by
these three several routes; but, in so far as concerns the
Polynesian race, the probability, under all circumstances, is
that they entered the Pacific by the southern route.
The course of the winds is a most material element in this
enquiry. Periodical winds or monsoons prevail to the north of
the equator, blowing, during the winter solstice, from the
north-east, and during the summer solstice from the south-