244 RAJA DONAN. 



to tell him something?" Pondering in this way, he made his 

 way down to the private landing place, and there he prayed 

 that God Almighty would direct his new-born nephew to 

 him. A whole day and a whole night did he wait there on 

 the watch, and about noon on the second day he saw a boat 

 (kakap) coming down the river. Then again he prayed " O 

 God, O Lord, may it please thee to cause that boat to come 

 to my landing place ! " No sooner had he uttered this prayer 

 than the boat came down with extraordinary swiftness and 

 ran alongside of his steps (datang me-lenggang-kan haluan- 

 nia pada tangga jambatan itu) . Down went the Bandahara 

 to the boat and forthwith entered the cabin. The boat in- 

 stantly floated out into the middle of the stream again, but tha 

 Bandahara was much too busy covering the infant with 

 caresses to observe this. When eventually he started to 

 carry his nephew on shore, he found, to his astonishment, that 

 he was out of sight of his home, being in fact some way out at 

 sea. Resigning himself to the will of God, he made up his 

 mind that nothing but death was in store for them both, but 

 the boat kept on her way, never stopping in her course day or 

 night and no disaster happened to them. In this way a year 

 went by, and the child, at the end of that period, was able to 

 talk, and gave himself the name of RAJA DONAN. 



One day RAJA DONAN told his uncle to let go the anchor, 

 so that they might rest for a while, there being no wind ; this 

 was accordingly done, and there they lay for ever so long rock- 

 ing about gently. One day the BANDAHARA, at his nephews' 

 request, climbed up to the look-out place (tinjar-an karang) 

 to satisfy the latter, who had a presentiment that some danger 

 was threatening them. North, South and East were carefully 

 scrutinised, all was clear in those quarters ; to the West the 

 BANDAHARA thought he saw a something; it wasn't an is- 

 land, and it wasn't anything floating ; nor was it a cape or 

 a town. At last he made it out to be a forest of masts like 

 a grove of cotton-trees (tampak putih memutih cherapong 

 mariam tiang laiar ber-sungit-an saperti dusun kabu-kabu) , 

 and then a fleet of ninety-nine ships led by one very large 

 one, all equipped for war. RAJA DONAN was down below 

 when his uncle brought him the news and warned him to 



