a really ancient character have been found anywhere in the Peninsula. A mural inscription unearthed at Singapore in the early days of the occupation might have thrown some light upon the early history of Malaya had not the then administrators by an unpardonable lapse into vandalism allowed the relic to be broken up. The very paucity of the remains, however, is fairly convincing proof that if we know little of the ancient history of the Malay Peninsula, it is because there is little to be known. No conceivable cataclysm could have wiped from the face of the earth absolutely all traces of a closely knit social fabric and an extensive commercial life if such had existed. Java, in immediate proximity to the Malay Peninsula, contains some of the most stupendous monuments of ancient civilisation that the world has to show. Its Boro-Budur vies with the pyramids in the magnitude of its proportions, and it is infinitely superior to them in artistic beauty and interest. The entire island is strewn with relics which attest the virility and genius of the once dominant race. If the Malay Peninsula at the same period had been equally a centre of political and commercial power, we should almost certainly have had to-day some evidences of the past presence of a people so richly endowed with intellectual qualities as the Javanese were. The strong probability seems to be that the occupation of the Malay Peninsula, and to a certain extent also that of Sumatra, followed at a long period after the establishment of the Buddhistic civilisation of Java, and then, owing to dynastic vicissitudes and other causes, was intermittent in character.

Native material for the reconstruction of the past is embodied almost exclusively in the Sejara Malayu, or the Malay Annals, a work which, since its original

production in the remote past, has been through many hands and in the process of revision has probably suffered a good deal from the zeal of editors. It is more interesting and valuable as a specimen of Malay literature than as a serious contribution to history. Much of it is manifestly legendary, and what remains is tainted with the suspicion that attaches to statements in a too intimate connection with the fabulous. The narrative traces the history of Malaya back to a period many centuries ago when a Malay prince, Raja Bechitram Shah, more familiarly known as Sang Sepurba, accompanied by two followers, appeared at a certain place in Palembang, Sumatra, and won the good graces of the local chief by boldly claiming to be a direct descendant of Alexander the Great. In due course he wedded the daughter of the local chief, and attained to a position of great authority in the State. Ambitious and daring, he ultimately tired of the silken bonds which bound him to Sumatra, and embarked for Java intent on conquest. At Bantam he laid the foundations of a new State, of which he made his son Sang Nila Utama the head. Then he once more turned his steps to Sumatra, and with characteristic energy created another principality famous in Malay history as Menangkabau. Here he ruled with wisdom and courage, and dying left the Malay power firmly established. Meanwhile, Sang Nila Utama, tiring of his charge at Bantam, had crossed over to the island of Singapura— the modern Singapore-and established there about A.D. 1160, a city which in course of years became a great trading mart. After his death in 1208, the place continued to prosper until about the middle of the thirteenth century, when it was made the object of attack by the Raja of Majapahit, a Javanese prince,

whose jealousy had been excited by the extraordinary prosperity of the port. The first assault was beaten off, but, through the treacherous connivance of some of the local Raja's subjects, the city was ultimately captured.

After the custom of the age, the inhabitants were put to the sword by the conquerors. A vast number perished, but a considerable minority managed to escape up the Straits to Malacca, where, amid new surroundings, they sought to revive the tarnished glories of Singapura. Fortune smiled on their efforts to such an extent that in a few generations Malacca was a name renowned throughout the East as that of a mart for the distribution of products gathered in the Indian and Chinese seas. In the opening years of the sixteenth century, when the city was visited by Lewis Wertemanns, a native of Rome, it was ruled over by a Raja who appears to have paid tribute to the Emperor of China in recognition of aid given to his predecessors in the founding of the Settlement—an event which was placed at a period eighty years previously. If we read the narrative of Wertemanns in conjunction with the story in the Malay Annals, there seems to be fair ground for the presumption that there was no important settlement of the Malay Peninsula until the fifteenth century, and that Singapore has an ancestry as a place of civilised settlement which does not go back much beyond eight hundred years. The power of the great race which had built up the ornate fabric of civilisation in Java had, even at the earlier date, long passed its zenith, and an era of intellectual decadence had set in, which the Malay ascendancy had not the power or possibly the aptitude to arrest. Hence it is not at all surprising that we look in vain to-day among the ashes of the historic centres of Malay authority for traces of that culture which we know to have existed