was very simple: the
epidermis, or exterior coating, was scraped off with glass, and then the
stick was straightened with fire, as is done by the Malays in preparing
the Malacca canes. Several of these Penang lawyers were sold by the
convicts on the spot, and many more were exported to Europe and
America.

[Illustration: BOUNDARIES OF MALACCA, PORTUGUESE PERIOD

(From Godinho de Eredia's Work).

_Plate III._]

Chapter III

OLD MALACCA AND THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF CONVICTS THERE

Authorities differ very considerably as to the origin of the name of
this place. Some attribute it to the Malay name for a shrub which
largely abounded near the shore, a sort of "Phyllanthus emblica" of the
spurge order; others, again, ascribe it to a plant called the "Jumbosa
Malaccensis," or "Malay apple tree" of the myrtle bloom order; others,
again, say that the Javanese were the first to colonize the place about
the year 1160 of our time, and that they gave it the name "Malaka,"
which in that language means "an exile," in memory of one "Paramisura"
who came there as a fugitive from the kingdom of Palembang.

In the original manuscript of Godinho de Eredia, of date 1613,
reproduced by Janssen in 1882, he says that "Paramisura," the first king
of the Malays, settled on the coast near to the Bukit China River, which
is close to the present town, and called it "Malaka," after the fruit of
a tree which grew there. (See sketch from that old work, Plate IV.)
Anyway, like all Malay history, it is full of obscurity, and it really
does not concern us very much just now as to what it is really derived
from, though it would be no doubt interesting to Malay scholars to
pursue the inquiry.

We know, however, on the best authority, that it was the first
settlement formed by a European power in those seas. The Portuguese, in
their palmy days under Albuquerque, took it from a Malay Sultan, named
Mahomed Shah, in 1511. They kept quiet possession of it for 134 years,
when it fell into the hands of the Dutch, who held it for seventy-four
years; then the British took possession in 1795, restored it to the
Dutch in 1818, who gave it back in 1824, and we have held it ever since.
In size it is forty-two miles long and from eight to twenty-five miles
broad, and contains 659 square miles.

In the old Portuguese days it was a very important place of trade, so
much so that De Barros, their famous historian, wrote of it that, "the
native town wa