An old Tombstone in Pahang. 
By WARREN D, BARNES. 
(With two plates.) 
In May, 1910, His Highness the Tungku Besar of Pahang was 
visiting Kuala Lipis, and among the presents brought to him by the 
local Penghulus was a gravestone which was reported to have been 
found some time previously in the Pahang River near the Peng- 
hulu’s landing stage at Tebing Tinggi. The stone was carved with 
an inscription in Arabic characters which baffled the local scholars. 
A transcription of it was subsequently made by the Mufti at Pekan, 
Haji Osman bin Senik. It proved of great interest, as the stone 
was the gravestone of Raja Fatimah who died in A. H. 901. 7. e. 
A. D. 1496 or fifteen years before Albuquerque captured Malacca. 
I propose to give a description of the stone which now lies in the 
Istana of His Highness at Pekan, and to discuss the identity of 
Raja Fatimah. 
The plates which accompany this paper show the shape of the 
stone. Its height from its top to the bottom of the carved foot is 
992 inches; its width across the carved foot 14 inches, and across 
the face 9+ inches; its thickness in the thinner portion 5 inches. 
The following description has been given me by Mr. J. B. 
Serivenor, Government Geologist, Federated Malay States, of a 
chip from the bottom of it :-— 
“This is an excellent example of a basic lava. The base is 
cloudy but is evidently composed to a large extent of felspar micro- 
liths. The felspar phenocrysts are fresh and beautifully zoned in 
some cases. The extinction angles are not very high and point to 
the felspar being andesine. Augite, almost colourless in section, is 
common and there is a deep brown, strongly pleochroic mineral 
with nearly straight extinction that occurs chiefly in prisms with 
strongly marked black rescrption borders. This mineral is most 
probably basaltic hornblende, but it cannot be proved from this 
slide. There is one large crystal of biotite much altered.”’ 
“It would be interesting to compare this rock with the grave- 
stones in the Raftles Museum, Singapore. They appeared to me to 
be of the same nature.”’ . 
“ This rock, which may be called pyroxene-hornb!ende-andesite, 
might have come from some outcrop of the Pahang Volcanic Series, 
but I do not remember seeing anything exactly like it.” 
May, 1910. dig 135 Tsk 
R. A. Soc., No. 60, 1911. 
