Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago

Abstract

THE new series of papers relating to Indo-China, like its predecessor, consists of reprints from various periodicals which are not. within the reach of ordinary readers. Thus in the present volumes we find papers of great interest, and some of considerable importance, reproduced from the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of forty years ago, from the Journals of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, of the Royal Asiatic Society, and from the publications of various Dutch Societies. With regard to the latter, it may be said that they are the most valuable papers in the volumes, for the Dutch have long studied with great assiduity the land and people under their rule in the Malay Archipelago. Their scientific services, in Java especially, are recruited from Holland with the utmost care; the members are spread over the scattered Dutch possessions from Northern Sumatra to New Guinea; they are constantly studying the problems presented to them by man and Nature around them; and the consequence is that the Verhande-lingen of the Society of Arts and Sciences at Batavia, the Indische Tijdschrift, and other publications in the mother country, as well as in Java, are full of papers written by skilled and qualified persons who have devoted special attention to subjects connected with the Malay Archipelago. The editor of these volumes is indebted to these Dutch publications for such papers as that on the rocks of Pulo Ubin, by Mr. J. R. Logan, the greatest English student of this region that ever lived, although there are certain members of the Straits Civil Service who promise to rival him; for Mr. Groeneveldt's “Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca,” a modest title under which is concealed a learned examination of a vast quantity of Chinese literature with a view to ascertaining what the Chinese knew about the region; Father Borie's account of the Mantra tribe, and several others.

Miscellaneous Papers relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago.

Reprinted for the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Second Series. Two Volumes. (London: Trübner and Co., 1887.)