message to the governor of Malacca, informing him that he would depart with the
monsoon in January, taking along with him the merchant ships of Diego Mendez.
Just as he was making preparations to leave, news came to the fortress that Pate
/o vf’ r Japara, m the island of Java, had passed through the Straits of Sfibfib
!f7 i°n’Q<?ne, A® n,arrow straita leading through the islands at the eastern entrance
01 the Straits of Malacca), with a great fleet, and such turned out to be in reality the
case i his Pate Unus was a Moor, a valorous cavalier, and not a vassal of the
Urentne king of Java, against whom on the contrary, he and other Moorish lords
had rebelled, calling themselves kings. Before the Governor-General (Alboquerque)
had quitted Malacca, news had come, that Pate Unus had fitted out a great fleet,
not only with his own means, hut with the assistance of other lords, his friends and
relatives, with the intention of attacking Malacca, and taking it from the Malay king,
w o was then still in possession of it. With this object in view, he sent many
Javanese to reside in Malacca, in order to have them at his service when he should
arrive there. Pate Unus had entered into a league with Mutaraja, the same whom
the uovernor-General had put to death, and this, person had promised him his
entire assistance. This fleet having been prepared, he did not desist from his
enterprise, even although he knew that Malacca was now in our possession, for he
was told that we were few in number, and might be easily overcome by the strength
ol his armada, which was very powerful, consisting, between juncos (jung), lancharas
(ianchang, a barge), and calalenzes, of three hundred vessels. The fleet, equipped
as 1 have now said, sailed for Malacca, and passing the Straits of Sdbab, was seen by
certain people of the town of Malacca, who brought information of it to the Governor,
Buy de Brito, who forthwith communicated the news to the Admiral, Fernao Perez,
in order that he might ascertain what fleet it was, and whether it was as great as it
was represented.’ —Decade II., book 9, chap. 5.
« account of one of the ships that formed this fleet is curious
Bate Unus, says he, “ gave orders to construct a ship which should he of the size
°l °U,rf’ u i°DS\ In bulldini? te r, he commanded that a second layer of planking
snould be placed over the first, and so on, to the number of seven coats. And
between each layer of planking there was put a coating consisting of a mixture
hdumen, lime and oiL Each layer of planking they called lapis (in Malay, “ fold ”
°r f maimer the sides of the junco were three palms in thickness,
so that, wherever she might be placed, she would serve for a tower or b a s tio n—
Decade II., book 9, chap. 4.
A part of this expedition made an effectual landing, but quickly re-embarked, and
t!• ^ aS Pursuec^ attacked, and discomfited by five Portuguese ships, none of
which could have exceeded the size of an ordinary corvette. This is the historian’s
account of the flight and p u r s u i t " At sight of the flight of the enemy, our people
were so overjoyed that they shouted ‘ Victory, victory, they fly !* Fernao Perez,
making sail, gave the signal, ‘Saint Iago, at them ! ’ and it was marvellous what
every one then achieved. I t would be difficult to describe the daring, the courage,
which every man displayed in this action. Suffice it to know, that our few ships
appeared among the multitude of those of the enemy like so many wolves amid a
flock of sheep. Our people had only to reach their little vessels to set fire to them
with the materials we had prepared beforehand, and to pass on. The enemy,
without means of defence, and without even attempting to take refuge in the
river Muar, saw the vessel of Pate Unus himself turning her head in flight towards
the Straits of Sdhao, and followed her. He himself, when he saw one part of his
fleet burnt, and another sunk, ordered the vessels that were near him to come closer,
in dread of being boarded, or sunk by our artillery, notwithstanding his many-coated
ship.’ —Decade II., Book 9, chap. 5.
NEGRITOS, or Little Negros, a name given by the Spaniards to the negro race of
t h e Philippines. See A e t a s .
NEGRO. Races bearing a great resemblance to, yet very materially differing
from, those of Tropical Africa, occur, from the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of
Bengal, in the ninety-third degree of east longitude, to the Feejee Islands, in the
hundred and eightieth, and from Luzon, in the Philippines, in the nineteenth degree
of north, to New Caledonia^ in the twenty-first of south latitude, or over a space of
eighty-eight degrees of longitude, and forty of latitude. Over this vast surface however,
they are strangely and almost capriciously distributed. Of the Andaman
Islands they are the sole inhabitants, while the Nicobar group, but thirty leagues
distant from them, is occupied by a different race. We next find them in the mountains
of tbe interior of the M a l a y Peninsula. But there is no trace °f them in
Sumatra or in anv of the islands lying between it and the bumatia or m an y o CelebeS; and in all the islands ePaesnt ionfs utlhae. m Tuhnetyil awree
reach New Guine’a, and the islands near its coast, where they form the only inhabitants
aa Uiev do ot all the islands of the Pacific, east of it as tar as the Feejees,
S i d s o u t h as far as New Caledonia. After these two limits they disappear, and are
not to be found in any of the islands of the northern or southern Pacific. In the
P h i l i p p i n e Archipelago they form a scanty portion of the population of four islands
only, namely, Negros, Panay, Mindoro and Luzon. These are all large islands, and
thWhUeStthese° Negros differ widely from those of Africa, they are themselves far
from being a homogeneous race, some of them even differing more from each other
than others do from the African negro. Thus, all of them to the north of the
equator, consisting of those of the Andamans, of the Malay Penmsula, and of the
Philippines, are pigmies whose average stature does not exceed four foet eightmches,
while those of New Guinea, and of the Feejee Islands are, at least, half a foot^ taller.
Some of the negros of New Guinea, both as to stature and features, might be taken
for Africans, which the most careless observer could not do with the puny negros
north of the equator. Even in the Austral Negro, there are wide differences. Those
of Malicollo and Tana are a diminutive people, while those of the Feejees and New
Caledonia are a tall one. Even in complexion there is much variety. All are
dark, although never of the ebony black of a Congo negro. The inhabitants of the
Andamans are black, while those of the Philippmes are described as of the colour of
over-burnt coffee. The people of New Guinea are of a deep brown, with a bluish
tinge. The hair of the head in all of them grows in separate spiral tufts, but m the
negro of New Guinea, and in some of those of the Pacific Islands, it attains such a
length that the wearer converts it into a huge turban, from whence Europeans have
given them the name of mop-beaded Indians. The hair of the Boreal negros, also
grows in spiral detached tufts, but is short and incapable of the same elongation, and
in this respect more resembles that of the African. _ . .
When the test of language is applied, in so for as we can judge from the few fragments
we possess, all these negros seem widely different from each other. Ot the
grammatical structure of their languages we know nothing, but their phonetic
character is often different, and their vocabularies never agree, except in a very
few instances in which tribes are adjacent to each other, or when they have borrowed
the same Malayan words. This was the result of an examination of from fifty to sixty
words of seven languages, which I made myself in the Dissertation to a Malay dictionary,
and it is confirmed by Mr. Windsor East, a writer who, by his knowledge and
experience of these races, is by far the most competent judge. In his “ Papuans he
has given a list of fifty-six words of four of the languages of New Guinea. M i n i n g
these I find, as to indigenous terms, that the word for water, although differing
materially in form, may possibly be the same in three languages, with some suspicion
that all of them may be derived from the same Malay or Javanese word. The name
for man and for the verb to speak agree in two languages. This is the sum of agreement
in four languages, in so far as native words are concerned. The Malay words
amount to six, namely, those for bird, tree, root, moon, fire, and dog; but besides
these, there are the numerals in two of the languages. These last, are indeed, much
altered in form, and after a fashion of which there are examples in the languages of
nations of the Malayan race, as in the instance of those of the remote island of Timur.
Thus to the numeral one in Malay, sa, is added mosi, which, most probably, signifies
a stone or pebble, and is the equivalent of the sawatu, “ one pebble,” the usual form
of this numeral in Javanese, abbreviated satu in Malay. The four next numerals are
corruptions of the Malayan, but after these, instead of adopting the common Malayan
numerals, they combine the lower numerals with that for five, as five and one for six,
and five and two for seven, and so on. As to the languages of the Boreal negros,
they have absolutely not one word that I can detect, in common with those of the
Austral, except in the instance of the language of the Sämangs or negros of the Malay
Peninsula, and here the similarity exists only through the common medium of the
Malay. In so far, then, as the test of language is concerned, there may be as many
different races of negros as there are tongues, and in the present state of our knowledge,
these are not countable. The languages of the negros towards the eastern side of the
Malay Peninsula, are stated to be entirely different from those of tribes towards the
western. The languages of the innumerable tribes of the Negritos, or little negros of
the Philippines, are stated to have no resemblance to each other, except in so far as