Hikayat Hang Tuah. 
Part I. 
By R. 0 . Winstkdt, I). Litt., (Oxon.) 
New 7 bold in his “ British Settlements in the Straits of 
Malacca,” Yol. II, page 327, continents as follows on the Hika- 
yat: — “ Yalentyn thus speaks of the Hikayat Hang Tuah : ‘ I know 
not w 7 ho is the author of the book, but must declare it is one of 
the most beautifully written I ever perused’. Mr. Crnwfurd, in 
allusion to this remark, observes, ‘ This favourite of Yalentyn to 
my taste is a most absurd and puerile production. It contains no 
historical fact, upon which the slightest reliance can be placed;, 
no date whatever; and if we except the faithful picture of native- 
mind and manners, which it unconsciously affords, is utterly worth- 
less and comtemptible The work, however, appears to me to 
merit the sweeping censure Mr. Oravfurd has ^bestowed on it, as 
little as the enthusiastic Valentyn’s unqualified praise. Leyden, 
speaking of these historical romances, observes justly, particularly 
of the Hang Tuah, that, ‘ though occasionally embellished by fiction, 
it is only from them that w 7 e can obtain an outline- of the Malay 
history and of the progress of the nation ’.” The book is peculiarly 
a book of British Malaya, but Newdxdd’s comment is still after 
ninety years the last word of British criticism, and the Hikayat 
Hang Tuah has been left unheeded under what Newbold reluctantly 
called “ the Upas tree of British apathy.” However a Dutch 
scholar G. K. Niemann has given us fragments of the Hikayat 
with notes in his Bloemlezing (4e druk 1892 I, p. 103, and II, 
pp. 54-116). R. Brons Middel has published an abbreviated edi- 
tion, Hikajat Hang Tuwah, Leiden, 1893. Dr. Brandstetter has 
given us a useful outline in his “ Malaio-Polynesische Forschungen 
III,” Luzern, 1894. Professor Dr. van Ronkel has written a paper 
on Hang Tuah’s visit to the country of the Tamils (Shellabear, 
Vol. II, pp. 121-146) and discussed several difficulties ( Bij. T. L. 
en V. K., N. T. Kon. Inst., No. 7, Yol. II, p. 311: 1904). Above 
all, Shellabear has published a complete text. References to MSS. 
and brief notices of the romance will be found in JuynbolPs “ Cata- 
logus van de Maleische en Sundaneesche Handschriften der Leidsche 
Universiteits Bibliotheek,” CXYIIT, pages 147-8. 
I give here an outline of the tale and propose in a later paper 
to furnish critical notes on a w r ork of very considerable literary 
merit in parts, compounded by various bands of Indonesian folk- 
lore, Moslem legend, voyagers’ tales, authentic history and re- 
miniscences from such literature as the Javanese Panji cycle and 
the Malay version of the Ramayana (e.g. Vol. II, page 196). 
Jour. Straits Branch; 
