70 Account of Rumbdwe, one of the Malacca States. [Feb. 



Sayad Saban, the present Iang depertdan Mdda of Rumbdive, is the 

 son of an Arab named Sayad Ibrahim by his concubine ShKamis, a 

 Malay slave girl, a Khdna-zdda of Zain-ud-Din, formerly Capitan 

 Maldyu in Malacca. He is a native of Chembong in Rumbdwe, whither 

 his father, a rigid zealot, had proceeded to promulgate and expound 

 the tenets of the Koran. 



His son, Sayad Saban, principally resided in Rumbdwe, but occa- 

 sionally at Malacca. Being naturally ambitious, he early sought to 

 connect himself by marriage with the ruling families in Rumbdwe, and 

 Siac, in Sumatra. He first married a daughter of the Iang de pertuan 

 Mdda of Jallabu, Raja Sabun, a son of the second Menangkdbdwe 

 prince, Raja Adil. He then crossed the straits, and obtained the 

 hand of one of the Siac chief's daughters. His next matrimonial con- 

 nexions were with Raja Ali's family. 



Sayad Sa'ban is young, active, and intriguing ; but at present well 

 disposed to the British Government. Without the bigotry of his father 

 he entertains a thorough contempt for the apathetic opium-eating 

 Malay chiefs, his colleagues in power. He has a taste for war, and 

 proved of great service in placing his father-in-law, Raja Ali, over 

 the heads of his competitors. His activity both for and against the 

 troops in the Naning expeditions are well known. 



By his own talents and address, the religious influence of his father, 

 and from his Arab extraction, a circumstance to which the Malays 

 invariably pay great deference and respect, and his high connexions, in 

 the securing of which he has shewn great tact and forethought, this 

 adventurer has risen to the. Mtida-ship of Rumbdwe, and is now aspiring 

 to the entire sovereignty of the states in the interior. 



BENNiE.the present Panghdld of Rumbdwe, is an elderly, grave person, 

 with an unpleasing cast of features purely Malayan. He is at heart 

 inimical to the claims of the Mdda and Raja Ali. During the dis- 

 turbances at Lingie, in 1833, he shamefully deserted his stockade, 

 leaving it with several guns, and a quantity of ammunition, in the 

 hands of the vassal chief Katas ; not without being strongly sus- 

 pected of having received a considerable bribe for this piece of treachery. 

 He assisted the ex-Panghdhi of Naning during the time he was in 

 arms against Government. Bennie is addicted to opium-eating, and 

 like other Malays of this class, is not, as experience has shewn, proof 

 against the temptations of a bribe coming in the shape of this fasci- 

 nating drug. 



Among the Sukds, few are men of any talent or worthy of any 

 particular notice. Pakkat, an aspirant to the Panghulu-ship, and Suroh 



