RAG hen Bee 
WH) HING on a visit to Singapore in October last I found 
myself one day in the Raffles Library, and it occurred 
to me that it would be interesting to look over the Malay 
manuscripts on the shelves of the Logan Collection of philological 
books. Guided by a catalogue, I selected a thin, discoloured manu- 
script described as ‘“Sha‘ir Acheh,”’ wondering that there should 
have been a poem about Acheh in Logan’s time, though the Dutch 
expeditions to Acheh have made us familiar with the effusions of 
Malay poetasters thereon in later days. The first verse contained 
an allusion to Selangor, and it soon became apparent that the 
document had nothing to do with Acheh, but was a ballad relatine 
the adventures and death of a certain Raja Haji in Malacca. The 
names of persons, including those of the Dutch commanders who 
led the attack in which the Malay hero of the ballad lost his life, 
were given, so it was evidently a work contemporaneous with the 
events which it described. I borrowed the manuscript from the 
Library and set to work to collect all available information about 
Raja Haji’s attack upon Malacca in the last century. Materials 
were plentiful; Begbie * devotes five pages (pp. 65—69) to the 
subject and Netscher + has published (in Dutch) the text of the 
official diary kept in the fortress of Malacca from day to day 
during the stirring events of 1783-4, the source, apparently, from 
which Begbie got his information. And besides the Hnelish and 
Dutch accounts I found a long description of Raja Haji’s invasion 
of Malacca in a Malay historical work called “Tuhfat-el-nafis,” 
which treats of the Malay Rajas of Bugis extraction in the 
Straits of Malacca. 
I subjoim the text (Romanised) of the Malay ballad preserved 
by Logan, and probably acquired by him during one of his visits 
to Malacca some forty years ago. Itis evidently the work ofa 
Malacca Malay, friendly to the Dutch and perhaps in their service, 
who looked upon the Selangor invaders as robbers and the Bugis 
*< The Malayan Peninsula,” Madras, 1834. 
* “© Twee Belegeringen van Malakka.” 
