76 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE try. The inhabitants of Sumatra have three distinct characters ; but Sumatra is a great island little cul- tivated, and the intercourse between its inhabitants is very inconsiderable. The aboriginal inhabitants of Borneo are a few miserable savages, who never had an alphabet. The inhabitants of Celebes, who are not savages, occupy but a small portion of it ; and, besides, from the geographical character of their island, must always have been a maritime people, which implies considerable and easy inter- course. The two nations of Java have, it may be alleged, but one alphabet ; but then nine-tenths of the population are one people, and the weaker and more barborous were subjected to the more power- ful and civilized ; not to say that on ancient and rude stones we still discover, among the Sundas, the vestiges of a national alphabet, supplanted by that of their conquerors. Attempts have been made to trace the written characters of the Indian islands to a Hindu origin ; but of this hypothesis it may be remarked, that while the portion of the language of the Hindus which is contained in those of the Indian islands is distinctly from one origin, and bears the most uni- form marks of identity among the most distant tribes, the Jive alphabets are not only themselves dissimilar, but quite unlike to any ancient or mo- dern written character of India. The arguments used in favour of the Indian origin of the alpha-
