slands in this last voyage, has added some
links to the chain. But Captain Cook had not an opportunity of carrying
his researches into the more westerly parts of the North Pacific. The
reader, therefore, of the following work will not, perhaps, think that
the editor was idly employed when he subjoined some notes, which contain
abundant proof that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, or Marianne
islands, and those of the Carolines, are to be traced to the same common
source, with those of the islands visited by our ships. With the like
view of exhibiting a striking picture of the amazing extent of this
oriental language, which marks, if not a common original, at least an
intimate intercourse between the inhabitants of places so very remote
from each other, he has inserted a comparative table of their numerals,
upon a more enlarged plan than any that has hitherto been executed.

[Footnote 60: History of Japan, vol. i. p. 93.]

[Footnote 61: That the Malayans have not only frequented Madagascar, but
have also been the progenitors of some of the present race of
inhabitants there, is confirmed to us by the testimony of Monsieur de
Pages, who visited that island so late as 1774. "Ils m'ont paru provenir
des diverses races; leur couleur leur cheveux, et leur corps
l'indiquent. Ceux que je n'ai pas cru originaires des anciens naturels
du pays, sont petits et trapus; ils ont les cheveux presque unis, et
sont _olivatres comme les Malayes, avec qui ils ont, en general, une
espece de resemblance_."--_Voyages des M. des Pages_, tom. ii. p.
90.--D.]

[Footnote 40: Archaeolog. vol. vi. p. 155. See also his History of
Sumatra, p. 166, from which the following passage is transcribed:--
"Besides the Malaye, there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra,
which, however, have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but
also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be
indigenous to, all the islands of the eastern seas; from Madagascar to
the remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries, comprehending a wider extent
than the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. In different places,
it has been more or less mixed and corrupted; but between the most
dissimilar branches, an eminent sameness of many radical words is
apparent; and in some very distant from each other, in point of
situation: As, for instance, the Philippines and Madagascar, the
deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed in the dialects