Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/201

 ASIATIC NATIONS. 185 is long domestic tranquillity, a dense population, the good land of the country exhausted, and the population begins to press against the means of subsistence, foreign voyages, which imply both mercantile speculation and colonization, are not thought of in such states of society. The two par- ties at present in question are, in relation to the im- perfect state of navigation among them, separated by too distant, and to them dangerous, a voyage to make it practicable to carry on a commerce in the bulkyne- cessaries of life ; and neither the one nor the other is rich or civilized enough to have an effective de- mand for the luxuries or superfluities of the other. Those Malay states of the peninsula which lie con- tiguous to the Siamese empire carry on a direct inter- course with it. It is in the shipping of the Malays, in this case the most civilized and enterprising, as far, at least, as navigation is concerned, that the traf- fic is conducted. The Malays carry to Sia,m their pepper and tin, and receive food in exchange, the cheap and excellent rice of that country. The Chinese, who carry on so large a portion of the internal carrying trade of the Archipelago, conduct, also, all that is valuable of that of the Archipelago with the Hindu-Chinese nations. The peaceable, unambitious, and supple character of the Chinese, and the conviction, on the part of the native governments, of their exclusive devotion .to commercial pursuits, disarm all jealousy, and