THE HISTORY OF PERAK FROM NATIVE SOURCES. 89 
Perak, however, is Tumung on the Perak river, a few miles North 
of Kwala Kangsa which is the scene of the legend of the white 
Semang already alluded to. 
Tue LEGEND OF THE WHITE SEMANG. 
(Reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N. S. 
son, Part LY.) 
‘* Baginda Dar reigned in Johor Lama.(!) He despatched a trust- 
ed counsellor, one Nakhodah Kast, to sail forth and look for a 
suitable place for a settlement, for there were plenty of willing 
emigrants. Nakhodah Kasim got ready a fleet of prahus and sailed 
up the Straits of Malacca, hugging the coast, till he reached Bruas 
(a district and river in Perak). While there, he saw that a brisk 
trade was being carried on between the coast and the interior, im- 
ported goods being despatched up the country and native produce 
brought down from the inland districts. He made inquiries and 
was told that there was a big river in the interior. His curiosity 
was now aroused and he penetrated on foot into the interior and 
discovered the Perak river. Here he traded, like the natives of the 
country, making trips up and down the river, and selling salt and 
tobacco(?) at the villages by the river-side. On one of these trips 
he reached Tumung in the North of Perak, and made fast his boat 
the spirits of the sea, the land and the water, whose name was, 
Raja Baranggi, whose sway extended from the Kast to the West 
from the South to the North, and to whom all spirits were subject. 
God knoweth the truth! ” 
(+) Johor Lama was the old capital of the State of Johor, which is 
the southernmost of the Malay States of the Peninsula. 
(2) Tobacco was first introduced into the Eastern Archipelago by 
the Portuguese at Malacca in the sixteenth century. Anachronisms 
of this kind are common in native histories. 
