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Malacca c 1 ). 

 Ying-yai Shêng-lan (1416). 



Going due south from Chanipa with a fair wind, a ship comes to 

 the strait of Lingga; entering this strait and going westward for two days, 

 this place may be reached. 



Forinerly it was not called a kingdom , but as there were five islands 

 on the coast, it was called the five islands. There also was no king, but 

 only a chief, the country belonging to Siam, to which they had to pay a 

 tribute of 40 taels of gold, and if they failed to do this, they were attacked 

 for it. 



In the year 1409 the imperial envoy Chêng Ho brought an order 

 from the emperor and gave to the chief of this country two silver seals, a 

 cap , a girdle and a long robe ; he erected a stone and raised the place to a 

 city, after which the land was called the kingdom of Malacca, From this 

 time the Siamese did not venture to molest it any more , and the chief of the 

 country, having become king by the imperial favonr, went with his wife to 

 the court (of China) to present his thanks and to bring a tribute of prod- 

 ucts of his eountry. The Emperor sent him home again in a Chinese ship 

 in order to take care of his land. 



The country is bordered on the west by the ocean and on the east 

 and the north by high mountains ; the soil along the mountains is sandy and 

 brackish; the temperature is hot during daytime and cool at night; the fields 

 are not fertile and produce little rice, for which reason the people do not 

 occupy themselves much with agriculture. 



There is a large brook passing before the residence of the king on 

 its way to the sea; the king has made a bridge over it, on which he has 

 constructed about twenty pavilions, in which the sale of all kinds ofarticles 

 is conducted. 



The king and the people are Mahomedans and they carefully observe 

 the tenets of this religion. 



The king wears round his head a fine white cloth of native cotton 

 and on his body a long robe of fine, flovvered, green calico. His shoes are 

 of leather and he always goes out in a sedan-chair. 



The men of the people wrap up their head in a square piece of cotton, 



C 1 ) ^pj| jjjjl] jfjJJ , Man-la-ka, or, according to the Araoy pronounciation, Moa-la-ka. 



