Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

INTRODUCTION (Environment)
One of the most important of the geographical aspects of the Malay
Peninsula (which we may take as running from Tavoy to Singapore)
is its shape, which is that of a long-necked bottle or an Indian club,
narrow towards the upper extremity, bulging at the centre, and taper-
ing again at the lower extremity. The neck of the bottle or club at
its narrowest point in the north (the Isthmus of Kraw) measures but
thirty-five miles from sea to sea ; at its broadest (the belly of the
bottle), it is still under two hundred miles across ; hence, in spite
of its great length of roughly about a thousand miles from north to
south, there is no spot, even in the far interior of the Peninsula,
which is as much as a hundred miles from the sea. The result is
that the Malay Peninsula, though distinctly forming a part of the
Asiatic mainland, takes on the characteristics of an island rather than
those of the continent to which it incidentally coheres, and in most
respects should be properly regarded as forming an integral part of
the Malay Archipelago. Regarded from another aspect, the Malay
Peninsula is at once a causeway of colossal proportions, and a breakwater.
In the former capacity it connects the land forms of the fauna
and the flora (and even the geological strata) of the Asiatic mainland
with forms occurring in the islands of the Malayan Archipelago,
with several of which, including Rio and Lingga, Banka, Billiton,
and Sumatra, it is known to have been once geologically connected.
In the latter, it deflects what might be the normal course of the
trade of the Far East, some hundreds of miles to the south-eastward,
towards the equator and the cluster of great tropical islands of
which the Malay Archipelago consists. The actual course of trade
therefore follows the coast-line of the Malay Peninsula through the
Straits by way of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, the first and last
of which certainly appear to be as convenient spots for vessels pro-
ceeding by this route as any that could have been chosen. At the
same time the descriptions of the ancient glories of Malacca, even
if we allow for considerable exaggeration on the part of the chroniclers,
leave no doubt as to the reality of its former importance, and but
for the silting up of its harbour there appears but little reason why
the former Queen of those seas should now sit brooding over her
ancient fame. But apart from these three ports, which, after all,
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