3ST0TES 



ON THE 



MALAY ARCHIPELAGO AND MALACCA. 



►@<R>®« 



A careful perusal of the geographical literature of the ancient Chinese has shown, 

 that they have not gained their knowledge of south-eastern Asia by bold voyages of 

 discovery; slowly and cautiously they have crept along its shores, probably not ven- 

 turing to a country, before they had become acquainted with it by others. 



The proofs for this assertion lie partly beyond the scope of our present task , 

 but even in the following notes sufficiënt evidence will be found of what we advanced 

 just now. 



When the Chinese turned themselves towards the south , the first country they 

 visited was , of course , the northern part of what we call Annam now ; pushing on 

 along its coast they arrived at Cambodja, and next turned into the gulf of Siam. Here 

 they were detained a considerable time, for in Chinese history we find abundant in- 

 formation about these countries , long before it knows anything of those further south, 

 and it would seem that they did not go on in the original direction , before they had 

 got to the coast of the Malay peninsula, which gradually showed them their way to 

 Sumatra and Java. 



This process must have taken many centuries , before it was accomplished so far : 

 a hundred years before Christ the Chinese were in northern Annam , but during the first 

 centuries of our era, though Chinese history was then already thoroughly established 

 and written according to a reliable system , we find a complete absence of information 

 about the countries which form the object of our present research. It would be dif- 

 ficult to explain this by saying, that during these times China was often divided under 

 different rulers and generally more or less in a disturbed state , so that the adventures 



