Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/29

 INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT,

F I understand aright the duty which devolves upon me to-night in the position with which you have honoured me, I have two things to do. The first is to explain, at some greater length than has been done hitherto, the objects which the promoters have had in view in seeking to establish the Straits Asiatic Society, and the second is to point out the means by which it is hoped these objects may be attained.

The primary object of the Society, as defined in the Rules, is "to investigate subjects connected with the Straits of Malacca and the neighbouring countries." The expression "neighbouring countries" was selected as being a wide and comprehensive term, in order that the Society might feel as little restricted as possible in accepting communications respecting any part of Southern and Eastern Asia. But no doubt the attention of the Society will be chiefly concentrated upon the Peninsula of Malacca, as far North as the Tenasserim Provinces, and the great Indian Archipelago, that wonderful chain of Equatorial Islands stretching from Sumatra on the West to New Guinea of the East. Science is greatly in want of some general term to describe this great portion of the earth's surface, including both the continental and the insular divisions of it. For, though the different parts of it vary from one another in a great many particulars, yet they are in no slight degree homogeneous, and it would be a great convenience to be able to speak of them all under one common name. Several have been suggested, and of them all I prefer the name Malaya,' as being at once the most simple, and the most intelligible. For throughout this whole wide-spread district, the language spoken is either Malay or some closely allied form of speech; and Malay itself is to a very great extent the lingua franca—the common medium of commu-