NOTES ON MALAY HISTOEY. 159 



'jW^Epljjffit Ping -lang -seu, which (if these charts are 



really over 500 years old) is, I suppose, the first recorded men- 

 tion of Pulau Pinang, commonly called Penang. On the same 

 assumption, that they are the charts used for Cheng Ho's voy- 

 ages, the above noticed mention of Malacca is also the first on 

 record ; for apart from these charts Malacca is first described 

 in the account written by Ma Huan in 1416 A.D., this Ma 

 Huan being a Chinese Muhammadan who had accompanied 

 Cheng Ho as interpreter on his travels. Cheng Ho's first voy- 

 age was undertaken in 1405 A.D. and as it may be assumed 

 that his ship-captains made use of the most up-to-date charts 

 they could obtain, the mention of Malacca need not surpiise 

 us, for that town had then probably been in existence for 20 

 or 25 years. But of course we cannot be sure that the charts, 

 even supposing them to be really old, have not been somewhat 

 modified and brought up to date since Cheng Ho's time. My 

 point is that whatever may be their actual date in their present 

 shape, they undoubtedly embody some very ancient data, as 

 the case of Tan-ma-seih sufficiently proves. Whether the 

 entry referring to Penang goes back 500 years or not I leave 

 as an open question, though I see no reason why it should 

 not : the island is a very conspicuous object to mariners navi- 

 gating along that coast. 



Next after Penang island is a well-marked river-mouth in 



the coastline, lettered j-j J^gf'gf KeiJi-ta-kiang, that is to 

 say the Kedah river, and a little further on an island marked 

 llB 5^tXTr| Lung-ya-kiao-yi, undoubtedly from its position 



representing the Langkawi islands though the Chinese 

 name is much distorted from the original. Next comes an 



which 



island bearing the five characters |£j jj EQ^w|p| 



Mr. Phillips does not explain, and here we appear to be pretty 

 well at the limit of the Malay Peninsula proper, for the next place 



R. A. Soc, No. 53. 1909. 



