route. He states truly that it is a mart for
spices and much frequented by traders from the southern provinces of
China. He then mentions in succession the small uninhabited islands of
Sondur and Condur (perhaps Pulo Condore); the province of Boeach
otherwise Lochac (apparently Camboja, near to which Condore is situated);
the island of Petan (either Patani or Pahang in the peninsula) the
passage to which, from Boeach, is across a gulf (that of Siam); and the
kingdom called Malaiur in the Italian, and Maletur in the Latin version,
which we can scarcely doubt to be the Malayan kingdom of Singa-Pura, at
the extremity of the peninsula, or Malacca, then beginning to flourish.
It is not however asserted that he touched at all these places, nor does
he seem to speak from personal knowledge until his arrival at Java minor
(as he calls it) or Sumatra. This island, lying in a south-eastern
direction from Petan (if he does not rather mean from Malaiur, the place
last mentioned) he expressly says he visited, and describes it as being
in circumference two thousand miles (not very wide of the truth in a
matter so vague), extending to the southward so far as to render the
Polar Star invisible, and divided into eight kingdoms, two of which he
did not see, and the six others he enumerates as follows: Ferlech, which
I apprehend to be Parlak, at the eastern extremity of the northern coast,
where they were likely to have first made the land. Here he says the
people in general were idolaters; but the Saracen merchants who
frequented the place had converted to the faith of Mahomet the
inhabitants of the towns, whilst those of the mountains lived like
beasts, and were in the practice of eating human flesh. Basma or Basman:
this nearly approaches in sound to Pasaman on the western coast, but I
should be more inclined to refer it to Pase (by the Portuguese written
Pacem) on the northern. The manners of the people here, as in the other
kingdoms, are represented as savage; and such they might well appear to
one who had long resided in China. Wild elephants are mentioned, and the
rhinoceros is well described. Samara: this I suppose to be Samar-langa,
likewise on the northern coast, and noted for its bay. Here, he says, the
expedition, consisting of two thousand persons, was constrained to remain
five months, waiting the change of the monsoon; and, being apprehensive
of injury from the barbarous natives, they secured themselves, by means
of a deep di