It is throughout of a mountainous nature, and its
principal mountains from one extremity to another
are volcanoes. It is very generally covered with
deep forests of stupendous trees. The number of
grassy plains is very small, and there are no arid
sandy deserts. It is distinguished from every cluster
of islands in the world, by the presence of periodical
winds, and from all countries whatever by
the peculiar character of these. The Archipelago is
the only country of Asia situated upon the equinoctial
line, or very close to it. If not the most extensive,
it is at least the widest spread region,—the region of
most curious and various production, and of highest
indigenous population which exists anywhere in
the immediate neighbourhood of the equator. The
insularity of the whole region, the contiguity of
the different islands, and the facility and rapidity
of the navigation, are also prominent and characteristic
features. The animal and vegetable productions
of the Archipelago either differ wholly
from those of other countries, or are important
varieties of them. In one quarter, even the principal
article of food is such as man nowhere else
subsists upon. The productions of the ocean are
not less remarkable for abundance and variety than
those of the land.
The distinctive features now described have necessarily
produced the most extensive influence on
the character and civilization of the inhabitants*
iNïftODUCflON.
Themost abject mees (mty"*thoSé excluded by more
powerful neighbour's from the sea, áre hunters, and
the shepherd state can have no existence at all in
countries destitute of grassy plains, and rendered
almost Impassable by the deepness of their forests.
All migrations are by water. Their boats and
canoes are, to the Indian islanders, what the camel,
the horse, and the ox, are to the wandering Arab and
the Tartar ; and the sea is to them what the stepper
and the deserts are to the latter. The Indian islanders
are, by necessity, navigators and fishermen, and,
from this condition, the progress of civilisation a-
mong them is to be traced. When population ac*
cumulated in this stage of social existence, those
who were in the vicinity of fertile lands applied to
agriculture, and became in time the most numerous
and civilized races. The Indian islanders can
never effect Conquests on more civilized neighbours
as did the barbarians of the north, from the want of
those provisions, the existence of which was implied
in the very nature of a Tartar camp, and the impossibility,
therefore, of moving in great and Overwhelming
bodies. Beside the incapacity arising
from this canse, it may be farther remarked, that
although barbarians may acquire a sufficient skill in
military tactics, to prove an overmatch for a more
civilized enemy, they can never do so in naval tactics,
which in their nature being of a more complex
character, suppose a skill and progress in so-
v o l . i . *