degree of south latitude, and that of Siam the whole of the Malayan peninsula, the maritime districts of which were divided into three provinces, viz., Tenasserim, Ligor, and Queda, ruled by semi-independent viceroys, of whom the chief was the viceroy of Tenasserim. It would seem, however, that Malacca, though subject to Siam, formed a separate jurisdiction under a Muhammedan deputy, whereas the governors of all the other provinces, like the mass of the people, were Buddhists. There were frequent wars at this time between Pegu and Siam, and between Pegu and the inland states of Ava and Toungoo, which before the end of the sixteenth century considerably modified the territories of the rival sovereigns.
The island of Sumatra was divided into several kingdoms, of which the principal were those of Achin and Pedir though it is not improbable that the latter was tributary to the former. Most of the inland sovereigns pro- fessed Hinduism, and in Varthema’s time the king of Pedir was a “Pagan”; but there were many “Moors” resident on the eastern coast, and Achin had embraced Islamism as early, at least, as the fourteenth century.
INTRODUCTION. lxxvii
Java, also, was ruled by a number of petty Hindu kings, who were for the most part subject to a paramount sovereign, called “Pala-Udora” by Bar- bosa, who resided in the interior. According to the same authority, this personage was a “Pagan” but Crawford assigns A.D. 1478 as the date when the principal Hindu state was overthrown by the Muhammedans. There were many “Moors” settled at the different seaports, and about this period Islamism appears to have been making rapid progress among the inhabitants of the maritime provinces.
Of the places visited by our travelers to the eastward of Java, there is but little to be remarked under this head. According to Varthema, the inhabitants of the Banda or Nutmeg Islands were “Pagans, who had no king, nor even a governor; “Barbosa makes them Moors and Pagans, and Pigafetta, Moors only; to which De Barros adds, that “ they had neither king nor lord, and all their government depended on the advice of their elders.” The people of the Moluccas were Pagans and Muhammedans, but most of the “kings” were of the latter denomination. Barbosa describes one of these sovereigns, however, as being “nearly a Pagan;” from which we may infer that the population generally as regards religion was in a state of transition between heathenism and Islam. Of the prevailing government in Borneo, we know scarcely anything, beyond the fact that it comprised a number of petty independent states, which were chiefly subject to heathen rulers. The inhabitants of the place where Varthema landed
lxxviii INTRODUCTION.
were Pagans, as were those of the island generally; but Crawfurd adduces evidence to prove that many of the Malay and Javanese settlers had embraced Islamism long prior to this period.
Rejoining our travelers, we shall now proceed to accompany them in their subsequent wanderings. From Pulicat, they sailed to “Tarnassari” which I have found no difficulty in identifying with Tenasserim, although Dr. Vincent was disposed to locate it either at Masulipatam, or between that place and the Ganges. Varthema’s description of this city,— its situation on the southern bank of a large river, forming a good port; the military power of the king, who maintained a standing army of 100,000 men, whose weapons were bows and lances, swords and shields, some of the latter made of tortoise-shell the animal and vegetable productions of the country; the domestic habits of the people generally; 1 the
1 Varthema describes the cocks and hens at Tenasserim (p. 200) as the largest he ever saw; and among the domestic usages of the people, he speaks of their eating out of "some very beautiful vessels of wood." (p. 201.) Colonel Yule informs me that the big cocks and hens, and very handsome vessels of lackered wood, are notable features in Burmah at the present day. He also suggests whether the word "Mirzel," which he has found applied to an Indian dye in a work written by a Dutch author twelve hundred years ago, and which seems to indicate the brazil-wood, one of the products of Tenasserim, may not have originated the Italian "verzino," which Varthema uses to describe the dye, but the etymology of which I have failed to discover. (See note on p. 205.) The quotation with which he has kindiy supplied me is as follows:—"Tinctura quælam, Mirzel illis dicta, qua panni ele- gantissimo colore jecorario sive castaneo inficiuntur." Whereon he remarks: "Now, has the illis dicta any foundation? It might
INTRODUCTION. lxxix
peculiar dress of the Brahmins, or, more correctly, Buddhist priests; the amusement of cock- fighting; the concremation of the dead bodies of the kings and principal Buddhists, and the prevailing practice of Salt, or widow-burning, with their attendant rites; —all these subjects are treated of in detail, and with an accuracy which is amply confirmed by the testimony of subsequent writers. Among the birds enumerated by our author, there is one “much larger than an eagle,” with a yellow and red beak, “a thing very beautiful to behold,” the upper mandible of which was made into sword-hilts. Professor Owen con- siders that this parti-colored bill applies to the Buceros galeatus, of which a jeweled bowl, belonging to the crown jewels of the Ottoman Sultan, is formed; but which tradition had believed to have been made from the beak of the fabulous Phoenix.
Varthema devotes a whole chapter to the description of an extraordinary usage among the people of Tenasserim, connected with their marriages, in which the concurrence of foreigners was importunately solicited, and illustrates it by the personal experience of his party. Extravagant and obscene as the custom is, its prevalence in the Burmese provinces is confirmed by writers of a later date, and evidence is not wanting of its existence up to a very recent period.
help us to the origin of the words brazil and verzino. Drury or Ainslie would give the synonymes." I have searched through both writers in vain for an Indian name anything approaching that of Mirzel either in form or sound, and am therefore inclined to think that it is nothing more than a native corruption of Verzino.
lxxx INTRODUCTION.
A voyage of eleven days from Tenasserim brought our travelers to the “city of Banghella.” In my annotations on the text, (p. 210,) I have inferred that this place was the ancient Gour on the Ganges; but the following judicious remarks, which Colonel Yule has been good enough to transmit to me, lead me to doubt the accuracy of that identification. He observes:—"I think it is to be deduced from what Varthema says, that the city of Banghella was a seaport, and therefore could not be Gour. In an old Dutch Latin geography book, which I have chanced on in the salle of this hotel, (Hotel Royal, Genoa) with wonderfully good maps, by J. and C. Blaen, (no title; date about 16-40, as Charles I is spoken of as reigning I find Bengala, put down as a town close and opposite to Chatigam (Chittagong) I don’t lay much stress on this; but I suspect it was either Chittagong, or Satgong on the Hoogly, which was the great port one hundred years later, and also in Ibn Batuta’s time.” By Satgong I presume the Colonel indicates Ibn Batuta’s Sadkawan, which the latter describes as “the first town he entered,” and as being “large and situated on the sea-shore.” But the following quotation from Patavino, whose work was published in 1597, seems to upset my friend’s deduction as well as my own; for it also describes Bengala, as a town distinct from either Gour, or Chittagong, or Satgong. He writes:— "GOVRO vrbs Regia habitatio fuit, et BENGALA urbs quæ regioni nomen dat, inter vniversæ Indiæ
1 LEE'S Translation, p. 194.
INTRODUCTION. lxxxi
præclarissimas connumeratur. Præter has iuxta maris ripam ad ostia Chaberis insignia emporia Catigan et Satigan iacent, quæ centum propemodum leucis ab invicem distant.” I find, moreover, on further investi- gation, that Rennell likewise recognizes Satgong and Banghella as distinct towns, and gives some clue towards determining the position of the latter. The former he describes as follows:—"Satgong or Satagong, now an inconsiderable village on a small
