Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

INTRODUCTION
are to a great extent more of the nature of ports of call than termini,
and apart, too, from the fast-growing commercial importance of the
Federated Malay States, by far the greater portion of the Peninsula
is still much cut off from the world, and knows as little of it as, to
quote the homely Malay simile, the " frog under a coconut-shell."
Hence, in spite of the recent great developments both of planting
and mining, perhaps two-thirds of the entire country is still " unopened,"
and remains covered with the tropical growth of centuries,
forced to its utmost development by the hot and humid climate result-
ing from its insular character and equatorial position.
With regard to the character of the country itself, a glance at
the map will show that the backbone of the Peninsula consists of a
range, or rather system of ranges, the source of the innumerable
small rivers and streams which drain and irrigate the country from
end to end, and the chief of which give their names to the several
States of Kedah, Perak, and Selangor on the west coast, to Patani,
Kelantan, and Trengganu on the east, and to Johor at the southernmost
extremity. The hills, which are steep and savage, being clad
with jungle to the very sky-line, terminate in not a few places in rugged
and precipitous peaks, several of the highest of which are upwards
of 7000 to 8000 feet high. Their formation is chiefly of a granitic
character, with quartz and quartzose veins, which on decomposition
yield the extensive stanniferous, and to a minor extent auriferous
deposits that have been worked with such conspicuous success in
the alluvial plains. It is chiefly on the foothills, where these are
unoccupied, that the wild aborigines make their home. They are,
however, also found in small scattered communities on the hills
of the main ranges, up to a height of even 3000 feet and more.
Though caves are fairly common, especially in isolated limestone
masses in the northern part of the Peninsula, the aborigines do not
as a rule frequent these, preferring the rock-shelters, which are not
infrequently the haunt of the Semang. The alluvial land, which
lies at the foot of the hills and in stretches along the coast, has
every appearance of having been formerly covered by the sea, and
indeed in this respect the observations of science are at one with
aboriginal tradition, which asserts that the sea in former times
washed right up to the base of the mountains. The alteration of
the coast-line itself is continuous and extraordinarily rapid. On the
eastern coast, which is subject to an annual bombardment from the
rollers of the China Sea, hurled against it by the full sledge-hammer
force of the north-easterly monsoon, the fierce tides that race up
and down the coast are continually forming long, narrow bars of
sand parallel to the coast, each end of which keeps growing till
it reaches a point at which the coast-line curves to meet it, when a
narrow mouth perhaps is all that is left. The result is an extra-
ordinary phenomenon like the Inland Sea of Singora, which has