METHODIST REVIEW.

MARCH, 1887.

ART. I.-MALAYSIA.

THE Chinese are often ridiculed for their persistent adherence. to a system of geography which makes their own country thecenter of the world; and their grotesque maps afford equal wonder and amusement to every European school-boy who. chances to see them. The Chinese, however, are not alone in cherishing hazy notions of the geography of foreign lands. In: all lands geography is taught in such a way as to impress. the pupils with the notion that their own country is aboutequal to the rest of the world, and this early impression is very apt to linger all through life. It is a common habit of even intelligent persons to think of all foreign countries as they were accustomed to look at them in the little school atlas in which all maps were of the same size, and the difference in scale but little observed. The average American finds it hard to forgive the European who fails to appreciate the immense extent of territory embraced in the Great Republic; but when he himself passes from Europe over to Asia he forgets in turn how very much larger that vast continent is than his own America. Let us suppose, for instance, that the Philippine Islands are mentioned. He knows that there is such a group to the south-east of Asia, and that Manilla cigars and a valuable kind of hemp are produced there; but he thinks of the islands as he does of the Bahamas, a few little green points rising out of the sea; islets rather than islands, and of little or no importance to the world at large. He is as ignorant as a Chinaman of the fact that one of these islands is as large as the State of 11-Fifth SERIES, VOL. III.

Ohio, that a second is as large as Indiana, and that the whole group contains an area almost exactly equal to that of Italy, and capable of sustaining, without crowding, a population of thirty millions. The Bahamas might be added to, or subtracted from, the Philippines without making any appreciable difference in the extent of the group.

As with the Philippines so with the vast archipelago of which they form a part. Lying between Asia and Australia, and covering a sea area 1,300 miles wide by 4,000 in length, it is the most wonderful island region of the globe. After Australia (itself a continent) the largest and second largest islands in the world are found here-New Guinea and Borneo; the former nearly one and a half times as large as France, and the latter as large as the whole Austrian empire. The land area of the whole group is nearly equal to all Europe except Russia; and this magnificent belt of islands is certainly entitled to take rank as one of the grand divisions of the globe, instead of a collection of barbarous islets in an almost unknown sea. In order to impress his English readers with a true conception of the vast extent of some of these islands, Mr. Wallace, in his work on the Malay Archipelago, published a small map of Borneo, with Great Britain and Ireland, and all their interjacent waters, put down in its center, where they were wholly surrounded by a sea of forests. This island has a coast line of 3,000 miles, omitting the smaller bays and headlands, while New Guinea, which is both larger and more irregular in shape, has a coast line which, though not yet accurately measured, is longer very considerably.

These islands, though constituting one group on the map, are divided ethnographically into two distinct families, the Malayan and the Papuan. The great islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo are separated from the Asiatic continent by seas so shallow that ships can anchor almost anywhere in them; and it seems extremely probable that, at a not very remote period of the earth's history, these islands formed a part of the mainland. In like manner the Philippines, at probably an earlier period, were detached from the continent by a depression of the intervening surface. In precisely the same way New Guinea and other islands near the Australian coast were probably separated from the Australian mainland; and thus we

have in the great island group an Asiatic and an Australian section. The productions of the two groups strikingly sustain this theory of the origin of this division. The animals and birds. found in Sumatra, Java, and Borneo are the same as those found in the Malay Peninsula, or with differences no more marked than is common in widely separated regions on the mainland. In New Guinea and adjacent islands, on the other hand, the peculiar marks of an Australian origin are found every-where. The marsupial animals for which Australia is famous, the honeysuckers, lories, brush-turkeys, and other birds which have been supposed to belong only to Australia, are found on these islands, and are never found beyond the deep straits which separate them from the Asiatic group, although so near to them. Borneo is not more unlike Australia than Java is unlike New Guinea, although in point of climate and general character the two islands are very much alike.

The inhabitants of these two groups of islands differ no less unmistakably than their animals and birds. On the west we have the Malays, and on the east the Papuans; and although many tribes and subdivisions may be found among both these ethnic families, the general distinction is every-where easily recognizable. The Malay is an Asiatic, and the Papuan is a Polynesian. The Malay is short of stature, with a reddishbrown complexion, beardless face, straight black hair, and broad and rather flat face. The Papuan is taller, with black frizzly hair and beard, dark and sometimes black complexion, with thick lips and broad nostrilș, and looks as little like a Malay as an African resembles an American Indian. In natural ability he is probably more than equal to his Malay neighbor; but the latter has had the advantage of a longer contact with civilization, and for the present, at least, stands higher in the estimation of the outside world than the Papuan. The Malays inhabit, or at least are the predominant race in, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, the Philippines, and part of the Moluccas, and these islands, together with the Peninsula, which is itself, practically, an island, constitute Malaysia proper.

But even when thus restricted the Malay has still a splendid home for his race. The land area embraced within its boundaries amounts to more than 700,000 square miles. The soil is

nearly all productive, while the mineral resources are extremely valuable. The peninsula is the Golden Chersonese of which Milton sings, and from the remotest antiquity it has been famous for its gold and gems. Its mountains are stored with tin enough to supply the whole world. Sumatra is the richest of the islands in minerals; but, like all the large islands except Java, it has been but slightly explored, and the extent of its mineral wealth is imperfectly known. Borneo is known to be rich in minerals, and clothed in forests of valuable timber, while rumors of gold deposits, and of copper and iron, and last, but perhaps most valuable of all, of vast coal beds, are exciting the interest and cupidity of the ever-increasing swarms of adventurers who wander up and down the earth. Throughout the whole region, with the exception of a few small tracts, the land is fertile, and adapted to the growth of all kinds of tropical products. The forests are rich in timber, the gardens in spices, the orchards in fruits, the fields in the many forms of tropical food productions, and the whole region capable if properly cultivated of sustaining a vast population. If peopled as densely as Java is at present, Borneo alone would contain a population of more than 100,000,000 souls, and the whole region of Malaysia would contain not less than 250,000,000. Or, if it be objected that Java is an exceptionally rich island, and hence the estimate an unfair one, let the sleepy old island of Sicily be taken as the standard of comparison, and the result, if not so amazing, is still striking enough. If peopled only as densely as Sicily is at the present day, Borneo would still have a population equal to that of the United States, while the whole Malaysian region would have four times as many inhabitants as France. It is not necessary, however, to make any reduction of the higher estimate. Java, although sustaining a large population, is not half so densely peopled as some portions of the valley of the Ganges; and her 16,000,000 will no doubt become 30,000,000 at a not remote day, while the less favored islands around her will advance to a position at least equal to that which she now occupies.

The capacity of tropical lands for sustaining vast populations of easy-going people is not easily appreciated by those who are familiar only with the highly artificial life of Europe and America. In some of these islands a single sago palm yields