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

DISSERTATION. ccliii
migration took place, the Polynesians must have attained nearly
that measure of civilisation which they were found to possess
when first seen by Europeans. This is, indeed, satisfactorily
proved by a general uniformity of social condition, even among
the most distant tribes of the race, in places between which
there exists now no intercourse, or even knowledge of each
other's existence.
Were there any considerable tract of fertile land, much
superior to all around it for the development of an early civilisa-
tion, we should naturally fix upon that as the primitive locality
of the Polynesian nation. But, although there be several situa-
tions greatly superior for such a purpose to others, there is none
that can be said to be pre-eminently suited. We can fix, then,
only on the most probable, and I think that the Friendly
islands, which are of sufficient extent and fertility to have produced
the degree of civilisation which the Polynesians had
attained, not unlikely to have been the primitive seat of the
nation. In tracing the course of migration, and attempting to
determine the cradle of the Polynesian nation, the Malayan
element of its language is an important consideration. It
is found coextensive with the people and language,— greatest
in amount as we come neai'er to the Malayan Archipelago, and
diminishing as we recede from it, the body of the words being,
however, generally the same, and employed in the same sense.
May it not hence be inferred, that the Malayan languages were
intermixed with the Polynesian tongue before any migrations had
taken place ; and may not the amount of civilisation, however
inconsiderable, which the Polynesians received from the Malayan
nations, have been the cause which first stimulated the migra-
tions ? The Friendly islands lie towards the western end of that
long and continuous chain of islets by which the first migrations
from the Malayan Archipelago must have proceeded eastward.
It by no means follows, however, that all future swarms were
thrown out from these islands, as the original hive. On the
contrary, they would, naturally, take place everywliere after-
wards, from the localities most convenient for them. From the
Friendly islands, the Polynesian nation and its language would,
in the first instance, move eastward, along the chain of islands