As the Muhammadans' power declined, the Mahrattas, a Turanian race, led by Aryan Brah mans, rose to full, though brief, dominion, and I have been succeeded by Christian races from IV. Europe. The Danes havo ceased to retain any territory in the E. Indies. Tho French, however, in India proper still hold Cbandernuggur, Kari kal, Pondicherry, Yanaon, Mahe, with eight other smaller settlements, comprising an area of 178 square miles, and a population of 285,022 souls, and they are now dominant on the Mekong river in Ultra-India. Portugal, on the W. coast of the W. Peninsula, at Goa, Damaun, and Diu, has 1066 square miles, with a population of 369,788 souls, and that nation occupies Macao in China. The Dutch have left India proper for In donesia, where their great possessions amongst the Archipelago islands from Sumatra to New Guinea occupy 455,411 square miles, with a population of 17,952,803 souls,—Malay, Negrito, Papuan, Muhammadan, Christian, and Pagan. The Spanish Indies are likewise in Indonesia, in the Philippine Archipelago, most of the population being of the Negrito race, and almost allproselytes to Christianity. Nothing is known of the date of advent of the multitude of peoples of Mongoloid origin occupying the region from the N.E. part of the Himalaya, southwards to the seas of the Archi pelago.
Language.—Dr. Hunter, at page 20 of his Com parative Dictionary, has put forward the opinion that the aboriginal races of the E. Peninsula, Burma, and India N. of the Vindhya range derived their speech from a source common to them and I. the Chinese (p. 22), — not only the terms for common natural objects and for the civil institu tions of a primitive race, but also a part of the nomenclature of tillage, and even such terms of civilisation as road, yam, etc.
The Jaiva and Buddhist religionists number in British India 4,640,780; the great bulk of them (3,251,584) being in British Burma. The Sikh religionists, converts from the Jat race, are almost two millions (1,853,426), and are nearly all in the Panjab ; and of the Christians, 1,862,684 in number, 711,080 are in Madras, in which tradition asserts there have been converts since the days of St. Thomas the Apostle. The small
body of Parsees, and a still smaller number of Jews (7600), are mostly in the west parts of the Peninsula.
Amongst most of these eastern races, the birth of a boy is greatly more prized than that of a girl. Their daughters are occasionally neglected, and, amongst some of the Rajput tribes, even destroyed. The proportion of girls to boys was found by the census of 1871 to be low. Amongst Hindus the range in the several provinces was from 72.95 to 97.37 girls to 100 boys, and amongst Muhammadans from 80'92 to 95.18.
It is quite an oriental custom for the population to arrange themselves into separate communities, each with an independent life, and internieddling as little as possible with events that do not disturb its internal condition. Under this system a man's country is the guild or community in which he is born, and the people recognise as the supreme authority whoever happens to bo de facto ruler. Such race and communal isolation is common to all the populations of British India proper, but it has been widely extended by the system of minute castes which the East Aryans brought into India. Many of the prior races, while continuing the race guild, or clinging to a religious sect, resent the Brahmauical arrangement, and the census of 1871 showed in British India 8,712,998 persons not recognising caste, or designated out-castes. The geographical, historical, and economic notices of the countries in Eastern and Southern Asia will be found under their alphabetical arrangement. This article relates solely to their ethnic features. —Logan in Journ. Ind. Archipelago ; Bunsen; Max Muller ; Hunter's Comparative Dictionary ; Tod's Rajasthan ; Humboldt's Cosmos; Dalton's Ethnology; Yule's Cathay; Rawlinson'sHerodotus; Dr. Caldwell ; Sir Walter Elliott Prinsep's Antiquities ; British India Census; Elphinstone's Hist, of India.