Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/83

 OF THE ARCHIPELAGO. 69 Java, in round numbers of probably three hundred thousand people ; a people inhabiting a poorer soil, and more rude and needy than the Javanese. Ma- dura is separated from Java by a strait, in one place hardly two miles broad, yet the languages of the two islands are scarcely more like than any o- ther two languages of the western portion of the Ai'chipelago. All the observations made respecting the Sunda language apply generally to the rude and uncul- tivated dialect of Madura. Like it, its consonant sounds are, by two, fewer than those of the Java- nese ; and it has, like it, some uncouth vocalic sounds. Upon the whole, the language of the Madurese is a more copious and cultivated speech than that of the Sundas, as they are themselves a more improved race. The refinement, of its kind, implied by the dialect of ceremony, takes a wider range, and the language is occasionally the medium of epistolary correspondence. Still the Javanese i» the language of literature and important busi- ness ; and literary education implies a knowledge of it. The Balinese is the sole language of the island of Bali, throughout all its states, and has been of late years spread by conquest to the island of Lorn- bok. If the accounts we receive of the popula- tion of Bali can be relied on, it is spoken by half a million of people. It is a rude, simple, and pe-