COMMEHCK WITH ASIATIC NATIONS. 155 All the strangers, therefore, who, in any age, have held a commercial connection with the Indian island- ers, have invariably visited them j while the spirit of adventure, or the ambition of wealth and fame, has never carried the inhabitants of the Archipelago beyond the waters which wash their native islands. The most extensive, intimate, and probably the most ancient, of the foreign commercial relations of the Indian islands, is that with China. A de- mand for the most peculiar of the products of the Indian islands may be said to be now interwoven with the unchangeable habits, manners, and even religious ceremonies, of the singular population of that empire. From this fact alone, which is of more value than the imperfect records of either the Chinese or the Indian islanders, we may safely in- fer, that a commercial intercourse has subsisted for many ages between them. We must guard our- selves, however, against imagining that, in early times, it was a busy or an active intercourse. There is unquestionable proof, indeed, of the contrary. At present, since the road has been shewn to them by Europeans, and parts of the country, rendered by their protection a safe residence, the Chinese have displayed a strong tendency to settle and colo- nize. Before this period, they had certainly shewn nowhere a disposition to settle, as is sufficiently demonstrated by a total absence, not only of such colonization, but by that of any vestige of the Ian-
