Again, as we saw that the platform of the Archipelago is but an extension of the great central mass of Asia, and that the direction of the subterranean forces had determined the ranges of the land, so we find that its population is but an extension of the Asiatic families, and that the direction of migration was marked out by the same forces. But, separated by the sea from the great plains and vallies of the continent, having the grand routes of communication covered by mountains and dense and difficultly penetrable forest, the Archipelago could not be peopled by hordes, but must have owed ifs aborigenes to the occasional wandering of small parties or single families. The migrations from one island to another were probably equally limited and accidental; and the small and scattered communinities in such as were inhabited, must, for a long period, have remained secluded from all others, save when a repetition of similar accidents added a few more units to the human denizens of the forests.
We cannot here attempt to retrace in the most concise manner the deeply interesting history of the tribes of the Archipelago, so exciting from the variety of its elements, and its frequent, though not impenetrable, mystery. We can but distinguish the two great eras into which it divides itself,—that, at the commencement of which some of the inhabitants of the table land of Asia, having slowly traversed the south eastern: vallies and ranges, a work perhaps of centuries, appeared on the confines of the Archipelago, no longer nomades of the plains but of the jungles, with all the changes in ideas, habits, and language which such transformation implies, and prepared by their habits to give rise, under the influences of their new position, to the nomades of the sea;—and the second era, that, at the commencement of which the forest and pelagic nomades, scattered over the interior, and along the shores, of the islands of the Archipelago, in numerous petty tribes, each with some peculiarities in its habits and language, but all bearing a family resemblance, were discovered in their solitudes by the earliest navigators from the civilized nations of the continent.
The ensuing, or what, although extending over a period of about two thousand years, we may term the modern, history of the Archipelago, first exhibits the Klings from southern India,—who were a civilized maritime people probably three thousand years ago,—
