se in race affinity. They have left
only faint traces on the alien shores of far-away Australia. The
divergent ethnic stock of the widespread Malay world has been little
susceptible to these influences, which are therefore weak in the remoter
islands, but clearly discernible on the coasts of the Philippines,[570]
Borneo, the nearer Sunda Islands, and the peninsula of Malacca, where
the Chinese have had trading colonies for centuries.[571] But in the
eastern half of Farther India, which is grouped with China by land as
well as by sea, and whose race stock is largely if not purely Mongolian,
these influences are very marked, so that the whole continental rim of
the South China Sea, from Formosa to the Isthmus of Malacca, is strongly
assimilated in race and culture. Tongking, exposed to those modifying
influences which characterize all land frontiers, as well as to
coastwise intercourse, is in its people and civilization merely a
transcript of China. The coast districts and islands of Annam are
occupied by Chinese as far as the hills of Cambodia, and the name of
Cochin China points to the origin of its predominant population.
One-sixth of the inhabitants of Siam are Chinese, some of whom have
filtered through the northern border; Bangkok, the capital, has a large
Chinese quarter. The whole economic life and no small part of the
intellectual life of the eastern face of Farther India south to
Singapore is centered in the activity of the Chinese.[572]

[Sidenote: Importance of zonal and continental location.]

The historical significance of an enclosed sea basin depends upon its
zonal location and its position in relation to the surrounding lands. We
observe a steady decrease of historical importance from south to north
through the connected series of the Yellow, Japan, Okhotsk, Bering Seas
and the Arctic basin, miscalled ocean. The far-northern location of the
Baltic, with its long winters of ice-bound ports and its glaciated
lands, retarded its inclusion in the field of history, curtailed its
important historical period, and reduced the intensity of its historical
life, despite the brave, eager activity of the Hanseatic League. The
Mediterranean had the advantage, not only of a more favorable zonal
situation, but of a location at the meeting place of three continents
and on the line of maritime traffic across the eastern hemisphere from
the Atlantic to the Pacific.

[Sidenote: Thalassic character of the Indian Ocean.]