214 J. HORNELL ON INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 



Gujarat to Java in the yth. century. The Chinese were at that time regularly trad- 

 ing to Gujarat and the Red Sea, and Arab trade with the Malay Archipelago and 

 with China was also considerable. With these two streams of foreign traffic passing 

 Indian ports, the coast people of Gujarat would be early familiarized with stories 

 of the wealth of the Indian colonies in Java and Sumatra, and what more likely than 

 that the adventurous among them, provided as they were with the best-built sea-craft 

 of any in India, would themselves desire to take part in the rush to the Isles; finding 

 the reports true, if political conditions were threatening at home, is it not probable 

 that Gujarat should take a share, belated though it might be, in the colonization of 

 the Malay Isles ? 



Can there be an echo of this in the quotation in Hobson Jobson (1903 edn.) ? — 

 ' ' There is a saying in Goozerat, — 



Who goes to Java 



never returns. 



If by chance he return. 



Then for two generations to live upon, 



Money enough he brings back." 



(1856. Rds Mala, ii, 82). 



Before we can understand the full significance of the Indian colonization of Java 

 and the neighbouring lands, we must force ourselves to realize as vividly as possible 

 that there was infinitely more n:ovement in Asia during the first thousand years of our 

 era than there is now. Many Governments were unstable and every ambitious prince 

 dreamed of subduing his neighbours ; out of this welter ever and again emerged a 

 great warrior at the head of conquering hordes who spread terror and unrest far be- 

 yond the limits of his operations. Fugitive jjopulations pressed upon adjoining lands, 

 and this impetus once imparted, reacted again and again till it reached coast lands 

 and excited the more adv^enturous to seek happier homes in new countries. Such 

 forces as these sent multitudes of Indians to Java and Sumatra and to Cambodia, 

 where the early comers quickly founded prosperous states and became so powerful 

 and wealthy that the fame thereof brought new accessions of colonists, this time 

 principally craftsmen — ^builders in stone, expert sculptors, workers in metal and in 

 wood. 



A fact which lends some support to the Javanese claim to early intercourse with 

 Gujarat is that the Portuguese on reaching Malacca in 1509, found the trade with 

 India largely in the hands of merchants from Gujarat.^ 



' Stephens, H. M., " Albuquerque." in Rulers of India series, p. 9b, Oxford, 1X92. 



