18 



MAKTTTME CODE. 



the former of which may be considered as the original population of 

 the Island, while the establishment of the Menangkabaus may be 

 compared to that of the Moguls on the Continent of India. In the 

 Kctclieludima, or "Fine times of the Battas," adopted by the Malays, 

 of which I have a copy, the divisions of lucky and unlucky times for 

 undertaking any affair are expressed by the terms Masewara Bisma 

 Biliana Sulala, or, more correctly pronounced, Mulckwa/ra Wishna 

 Biraltana Sulala, corresponding to the Hindoo Deities. 



The table for calculating superstitions is extremely simple. 



To the collection that has already been made of the various 

 laws and usages of the Malays, Sumatrans, Bugis, Maccassars, and 

 Sulus, must be added the Mahomedan Laws of Inheritance, printed 

 by the Dutch at Batavia in 1760, in 102 articles, Dutch and Malayan ; 

 of this I possess a copy. 



As the collection is so various and extended, the compilation 

 must necessariky be deferred until the best authorities procurable can 

 be referred to, and, if possible, the leading native courts visited. I 

 request to present to the Asiatic Society a sketch of the Maritime 

 Code of the Malays as translated from the duplicate copies I have 

 brought with me to Bengal, and which, when corrected by more 

 original copies that I may hereafter obtain, and elucidated by notes 

 corresponding with the general plan of the undertaking, I pur- 

 pose shall form six books of the Malay Laws. 



In tracing back the Malayan laws to that of the more ancient 

 nations on the Islands of Sumatra, Java, and Celebes, and from 

 thence perhaps, on one side to the Continent of India, and on the 

 other to the large Islands in the South Seas, a wide field will be open- 

 ed for research, as well into the original, as into those extraordinary 

 languages which, in the proportion that they are correctly spoken 

 or written, seem to approach the Sanscrit. 



The comparatively modern origin of the Malays is a fact so ge- 

 nerally admitted, and universally supported by all their writings 

 and traditions, that it is difficult to account for the extraordinary 

 opinion laid down by the author of the sketch * of an intended 



id " A Rough Sketch of part of an intended Essay towards ascerfcahhng 

 elucidating and correcting established Muniments of the Jahwa or Jah- 



* En titled 

 deducting, 



wi Language, vulgarly called the Malay Language/' by S. fc 5 ., published atPnnce 

 of Wales' Lsland,inl807. 



