— 57 — 



and have establishecl a magazine on the eastern side of the great river; the 

 Franks (Portnguese) have done the same on the western side and these foreigners 

 anïve eveiy year. In trading they use silver money, but the natives use leaden 

 eoins; 1000 of these form a string (*) and ten strings make a bundie ( 2 ) ; 

 one bimdle of leaden coins is said to be equivalent to one string of silver 

 money. 



Ha-kang is a centre of general intercourse; our ships arrive there 

 before the merchants of other countries and then the goods are sold for 

 silver or leaden money ; when afterwards the goods from other countries 

 arrive , these are bought with the money received before. This is done 

 because the Chinese ships go there at different times of the year and so have 

 to wait for the merchants of other countries. 



Of the different countries to the east of Java very little mention is made and 

 it woiüd seem that the Chinese were not in the habit of extending their trading 

 expeditions so far. The little we have found is given below. 



« 



Tiong-ka-lo. 



Hsing-ch'a Shêng-lan (1436). 



Tiong-ka-lo ( 3 ) borders on Java; it lias high mountains covered with 

 verdure and in one of these there is a cavern , with three entrances in front 

 and at the back, which can contain as. manv as 20.000 men. 



The products of agriculture are about the same as in Java. The 

 weather is always warm and the manners and customs are pure. 



Men and women have their hair in a knot; they wear a long dress 

 of cotton and a striped sarong. 



They have no chiefs , but obey those who are old and virtnous, They 

 boil salt out of seawater and make wine out of fermented glutinous rice. 



Articles of export are antelopes , parrots , cotton , cocoanuts and cotton- 

 gauze. Articles of import are silver and flowered silk. 



^ • 



(') Ep ;jJJP fflêk* Our transcription is giveu after the Ainoy pronunciation, but as the last 

 character is generally used for the souud ra, it should probably be Tiong-ka-ra; the Mandarin pro- 

 nunciation of the time was Chung-kia-lo. We think the island of Madura is meant, but we must 

 acknowledge that the desciïption affords little intrinsic evidence for our supposition. 



