A TAMIL MALAY MANUSCRIPT. 35 
These settlers, Dravidians or Guzeratis, married native wo- 
mmen in the Peninsula and in the islands, and their sons, so-called 
péranakan, were familiar with the languages both of their father 
and of their mother. ‘The former idiom they gradually forgot so 
that finally their only language was Malay. Their sons, in their 
turn, knew neither Tamil nor Persian, but understood and talked 
nothing but Malay. 
This worm-eaten, slovenly written, manuscript, although nei- 
ther very ancient nor specially important is a curious historical 
document belonging to the period when Islam was introduced 
from the négéri di-atas angin (Persia and Hindustan) into the 
négéert di-bawah angin (Malaya, Sumatra, Java and the islands 
. further on to the East). It is a document bearing evidence of the 
great movement that swept away Hindu culture in the Indonesian 
world. It points to the Straits as the link between Southern 
India and the Archipelago. Consequently it seemed particularly 
fitting that an account of this manuscript should appear in the 
Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
Leiden, March, 1921, 
CY 
mR. A. Soc., No. 85, 1922. 
