Page:The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (IA journalindianar00loga).pdf/37

 frequenting the islands for their peculiar productions, awakening a taste for their manufactures in the inhabitants, settling amongst them, introducing their arts and religion, partially communicating these and a little of their manners and habits to their disciples, but neither by much intermarriage altering their general physical character, nor by moral influence obliterating their ancient superstitions, their comparative simplicity and robustness of character, and their freedom from the effeminate vanity which probably then, as in later times, distinguished their teachers. At a comparatively recent period, Islamism supplanted Hinduism in most of the communities which had grown op under the influence of the latter, but it had still less modifying operation; and, amongst the great bulk of the people, the conversion from a semi-Hindu condition to that of Mahomedanism was merely formal. Their intellects, essentially simple and impatient of discipline and abstract contemplation, could as little appreciate the scholastic refinements of the one religion, as the complex and elaborate mythological machinery and psycological subtleties of the other. While the Malay of the nineteenth century exhibits in his manner, and in many of his formal usages and habits, the influence which Indians and Arabs lave exerted on his race, he remains, physically and morally, in all the broader and deeper traits of nature, what he was when he first entered the Archipelago; and even on his manners, usages, and habits, influenced as they have been, his distinctive original character is still very obviously impressed.

We cannot do more than allude to the growth of population and civilization in those localities which, from their extent of fertile soil or favorable commercial position, rose into eminence, and became the seats of powerful nations. But it must be borne in mind that, although these localities were varied and wide spread, they occupied but a small portion of the entire surface of the Archipelago, and that the remainder continued to be thinly inhabited by uncivilized tribes, communities, or wandering families.

Prevented, until a very recent date, by stubborn prejudices and an overweening sense of superiority, from understanding and influencing the people of the Archipelago, the European dominations have not directly affected them at all; and the indirect operation of the new power, and mercantile and political policies, which