32 PULAU LANGKAWI. 
his island—Langkapuri. Next he attacked and sunk the fleet 
in which the young Prince of Rum, under the guidance of a 
trusted minister named MARONG MAHAWANGSA, was Sailing for 
the capital of China to be united to his betrothed. The scene 
of the shipwreck was on the eastern side of the Bay of Ben- 
gal, and the prince, who clung to a plank, was cast on shore 
on the island of Langkapuri. Here, one day, he was found 
by the princess of China and her attendants, who hid him in 
a cave, and carefully concealed from the bird Gerda the fact of 
his presence. The dénouement is easily guessed. When Gerda 
appeared before King SOLOMON to boast that he had carried 
out his determination, the prophet despatched a jzz to Pulau 
Langkapuri, and had the prince, the princess and their attend- 
ants conveyed in a chest to his audience hall, where Gerda was 
put to shame, and the inutility of attempting to resist the 
course of pre-ordained fate was demonstrated. 
The chronicler of Kedah, which, by the way, wascolonised by 
the minister of the Emperor of Ram—MARONG MAHAWANG- 
sA—seems to have been sufficiently satisfied that Pulau Lang- 
kapuri, the scene of the wars of RAMA and RAWANA, was iden- 
tical with the island off the coast of Kedah which the Malays 
now call Langkawi, and which may have been called Langka- 
puri in former times. And successive generations of Kedah 
Malays have, no doubt, been ignorant of the identity of Lang- 
ka with Ceylon, and have contentedly localised their legend in 
an island of their own. So it is not surprising that the 
islanders are still able to point out the very cave in which the 
prince of Rum was hidden from his enemy—the bird Gerda, 
who in former times had taken part in the wars of the Rama- 
yana. 
We landed in a sandy bay between two rocky headlands, 
and viewed the cave, which is principally remarkable for an 
inscription in Malay carved in the rock at a height of some 
twelve feet from the ground. It has been much injured by ex- 
posure to the weather, but seems to record the visit of some 
Raja 240 years ago, if the date A. H. 1060, which occurs in 
the inscription, is to be taken as the date when it was written 
and not of some past event commemmorated at a later period. 
Perhaps, with some trouble, a better conjecture as to the 
