THE MALACCA SULTANATE. 69 
merely the citadel, the heart of Malacca, the abode of the Sultan 
and of his Malay nobles, the ruling centre of the town. But the 
days when the Sultan attended personally to business were over: 
anew generation of Malay princes had sprung up, eager for fame 
and wealth yet averse to labour: greedy of glory but not of the 
risks of war. ‘The toll levied on the trade of the port enabled the 
Sultan to send out armed bands of hooligans who forced the little 
hamlets on the coast to bow to the dominion of Malacca. This 
was the second Malacca the imperial city of Mudzafar Shah and 
Mansur Shah (1445-1470 A. D.) the old Malayan Empire at the 
very height of its greatness when it ruled over Pahang, Kampar, 
Siak and Indragiri. 
What was it like, this chief among Malayan cities of the 
year 1460 A. D.? ‘The old primitive semi-aboriginal village of 
the Paramisura had been swept away; it had known no houses 
except dug-outs, and no luxuries except matting, in the making 
of which the women excelled. The new Malacca lacked its 
modern hinterland of rice-fields and orchards; it was still a thin 
line of houses stretching along the sea and river front. But the 
line was longer than before and the character of the houses had 
changed with the character of the town. The place swarmed 
with adventurers from all parts of the East. In its stories we read 
of Afghan swashbucklers; Indian jockeys and mahouts; Kling 
warriors who—after the manner of their kind—advanced when 
the enemy retreated and retreated when the enemy advanced; 
and men of religion from Arabia, sometimes genuinely pious, 
sometimes merely hypocritical, but always thoroughly unpopu- 
lar. Indeed such a cosmopolitan seaport town was no place for 
the practice of the meeker virtues. We read of a government, 
stern, severe and corrupt; of municipal surveyors who induced 
the Sultan to decree that a street must be straight in order that 
they might be bribed to certify to the straightness: of the 
crooked; of judges who took presents from one side on the 
clear understanding that they were not to be blamed if they 
took presents also from the other; of the election of a prime 
minister by the simple process of setting all the candidates in a 
row and letting the Sultana say “choose Uncle Mutahir.’’ In 
such a city of the strong no weak citizen was really free; every 
man sought a patron, the mightier the better, for it was better 
to pay toll to one chief than to many. Thus it came about that 
the greater nobles lived in walled enclosures amid the huts of 
their own followers and siaves. There at least they: were safe 
from the irresponsible bravoes who levied ~ blackmail’ for 
themselves by asserting falsely that they came in the dreaded 
name of the King. At night every enclosure was bolted and 
barred against the intrusion of thieves, trespassers and» illicit 
lovers; and even policing was unpopular since it exposed the 
patrolling minister of police to the risk of finding his sovereign 
in places where the Sultan did not want to be met. For in this 
R. A. Soe.j No. 61, 1912. 
