JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 50.— February, 1836. 



I. — Account of Rumb6we, one of the States in the Interior of Malacca. 

 By Lieut. J. F. Newbold, 23rd Regt. Madras Native Infantry. 



Rumbdwe has generally been accounted by the Portuguese and 

 Dutch Governments at Malacca as the principal of the states in the 

 interior ; but their ideas, like our own, until of late years, of the 

 relative situation of these states, both political and geograpical, appear 

 to have been very erroneous. At the present time, indeed, much 

 interesting matter remains in obscurity, and must remain until the 

 peninsula has been more thoroughly explored. 



These notions of the superiority of Rumbdwe over the sister state 

 arose probably from the circumstances of its proximity to, and early 

 connexion with, Naning ; and from that of its capital being the crown- 

 ing place of the deputed sovereign from Menangkdbdwe. 



Tradition ascribes its name to a large Marabdwe tree, anciently 

 growing near its western frontier, on one of the banks of the Mara- 

 bdwe stream, not far from its embouchement into the Rumbdwe branch 

 of the Lingie river. 



There was a small hamlet here, when I visited the place in 1832, 

 consisting of four or five Malay houses. The word Marabdwe is 

 supposed to have been corrupted into Rumbdwe. 



The area of Rumbdwe proper, not including the dependencies, is said 

 not to be quite so spacious as that of Naning. The nearest point of 

 its frontier is distant about 25 miles N. W. from the town of Malacca. 



Boundaries. — It is bounded towards the N. E. by Srimindnti and 

 Sungie Ujong ; towards the south, by part of Naning and Johdle ; to the 

 west, by part of Naning and Salengore, and to the east, by part of 

 Srimindnti and Johdle. 

 K 



