after being pitched and tossed about constantly for
more than a hundred days, thus to feel our ship
glide along so steadily ; and after scanning the
horizon by the hour, day after day, hoping to be
able to discern one vessel, and so feel that we had at
least one companion on “ the wide waste of waters,”
now to see land on every side, and small boats scattered
in all directions over the quiet sea. That
night we anchored near Babi Island, on a bottom of
very soft, sticky clay, largely composed of fragments
of shells and coral. A boat came off from the shore,
and, as the coxswain could speak a little English,
I took my first lesson in Malay, the common lan-
guage, or lingua frcmca, of the whole archipelago.
As it was necessary, at least, that I should be able
to talk with these natives if I would live among them,
and purchase shells of them, it was my first and most
imperative task, on reaching the East, to acquire this
language. The Malay spoken at Batavia, and at
all the Dutch ports and posts in the islands to the
east, differs very much from the high or pure Malay
spoken in the Menangkabau country, in the interior
of Sumatra, north of Padang, whence the Malays
originally came : after passing from island to island,
they have spread over all Malaysia, that is, the great
archipelago between Asia, Australia, and New Guinea.
Perhaps of all languages in the world, the low
or common Malay is the one most readily acquired.
It contains no harsh gutturals or other consonants
that are difficult to pronounce. It is soft and musical,
and somewhat resembles the Italian in its liquid
sounds; and one who has learned it can never fail
to be charmed by the nice blending of vowels and
H H H whenever a word >6 pronounced m Ins
presence. The only difficult thing u rth is language
I that words of widely different meaning sometimes
’ ¡¡¡¡II , 1 , j. -firq+ one are so similar that, at first, one mmaayy Tuoe mistaken for
another. Every European m all the Netherlan
India speaks Malay. I t is the only 1languageusedrn
addressing servants; and all th e European
W oTthese islands learn it ftom their Mabiy
nurses long before they are able to speak the Ian-
guage of their parents. Such children generally find
dMcult to make the harsh, guttural sounds of the
Dutch language, and the Malays saJne
never able to speak it well ; and, fo
reason, Dutchmen seldom speak Malay as correctly as
Englishmen and Erenchmen. H | ,
We are now off the ancient city of Bantam and
we naturally here review the voyages of the earliest
European navigators in these seas, and the principal
events in the ancient history of this rich island of
^T h e word Java, or, more correctly^ “ J aw C is
the name of the people who originally lived only m
the eastern part of the island, but, m more modern
times, they have spread over the whole : island, and
given it their name. The Chinese claim to have
known it in ancient times, and call Chi-po pr
Cha-po, which is as near Jawa as their pronunciation
of most foreign names at the present day. _
It was first made known to the Westerp world 1 y
that great traveller, Marco Polo, in his description
I ° , ____ J xxrl.no rm ms vovage