EARLY COMMERCE IN THE ARCHIPELAGO. 63 



but tliat it likewise came ffom some land farther 

 east ; and malabratlirum is supposed by many to 

 be the modern benzoin, a resin obtained from the 

 Styrax henzoin^ a plant only found in the lands of 

 the Battas, in Sumatra, and on the coast of Brunai , 

 in the northern part of Borneo. 



Although we gather fi^om the records of Western 

 nations these indications of products coming from 

 the archipelago in the earliest ages, yet we have no 

 information in regard to the time that the Hindu 

 traders, who sailed eastward from India and pur- 

 chased these valuable articles, succeeded in planting 

 their own religion among those distant nations. The 

 annals of both the Malay and Javanese are evidently 

 fanciful, and are generally considered unreliable for 

 any date previous to the introduction of Mohamme- 

 danism. Simple chronological lists are found in Java, 

 which refer as far back as a. d. 78 ; but Mr. Craw- 

 furd says that "they are incontestable fabrications, 

 often differing widely from each other, and con- 

 taining gaps of whole centuries." 



The people who came from India on these early 

 voyages were probably of the same Talagu or Telugu 

 nation as those now called by the Malays " Klings " 

 or " Kalings," a word evidently derived from Kalinga, 

 the Sanscrit name for the northern part of tlie coast of 

 Coromandel. They have always continued to trade 

 with the peninsula, and I met them on the coast of 

 Sumatra. Barbosa, who saw them at Malacca when 

 the Portuguese first arrived at that city, thus de- 

 scribes them : * " There are many great merchants 



* Crawfunl's Diet. Ind. Anli., " Hindustan." 



