Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/33

 It will be impossible for me to do more than just glance at some few of the subjects upon which additional knowledge is urgently required, and may be reasonably hoped for. Let us begin with Geography. Now, I need say nothing to this meeting about the almost total ignorance in which we live of some of the more distant and inaccessible portions of the great extent of land about which this Society proposes to collect and publish information. I need not remind you how completely New Guinea is a "terra incognita," or even of how little is known of the interior of Borneo and Sumatra. Let us look nearer home. It would probably astonish some people to learn how extremely little accurate knowledge we possess even of the Malay Peninsula itself. Fortunately we have before us what will give us a very clear understanding of the limits of our acquaintance with this region, which lies at our very doors. The uncompleted map which is displayed on this wall, is one that is now being carefully prepared under the able direction of Mr. Skinner. I hope when these remarks of mine are concluded, that Mr. Skinner will himself correct me if, in the few words I have to say upon his important work, I unintentionally convey a wrong impression; and that he will give us any additional information respecting it, which he may think it desirable to communicate now. And I may mention that he has promised the Council of the Society a paper upon the subject, in which he will no doubt state very much more clearly than I could do, what is the present condition of our knowledge of the Geography of the Peninsula.

But I will ask you now to look at that map: observe the immense spaces which are entirely blank, or have merely the name of the native Government to which they are supposed to be attached written across them, such as Kelantan, Patani, Tringganu; and compare them with the few districts, almost entirely on the Western Coast, in which the mountains are sketched in, the course of the rivers traced, and the names of towns and villages inserted. Does it not remind some of us of what the map of Africa used to look like in our school days, before the discoveries of Livingstone and his successors? Yet it is not of a vast continent like Africa, upwards of 2,000 miles in breadth, that we are speaking, but of a narrow peninsula which, at its greatest breadth, only extends to about 200 miles, from the Straits of Malacca to the China Sea. This Peninsula has been known to Europeans for just 370 years, and that map shews you all, or almost all, that Europeans have learned about its geography in that time. But the map is also a sign that a great effort is being made to bring this state of ignorance to an end. It is, as you see,