A TRANSLATION OP THE KEDDAH ANNALS. 13 
the abbreviation of Mahantananwanso, the genealogy of the great* 
It signifies both pedigree and inheritance, from generation—being 
itself of high import, either on that account or because it also bears 
the two above significations—hence Mahawanso/ ? ( x ) 
A Siamese Buddhist Priest informed me that Mahawangsa is a 
title bestowed in written works, on the eldest Son'of a superior or 
Prime Minister. 
At the latter part of the fourteenth century Patanf was reduced 
to subjection by Chau Sri Hdngsd , a son of the Emperor of Siam. 
Maha Wansce means a Powerful Dynasty. There were the Surya 
wangsoe —children of the Sun. In the Malayan annals N&rawaog- 
sd is described to be “ a Malayan title of old ” 
This matrimonial embassy from Rum has a close connection 
in point of time with one described by Marco Polo—whose 
veracity, while relating what he himself witnessed, or performed, 
however it may have been cavilled at for several centuries, 
has by the moderns been amply confirmed. He informs us ( 2 ) 
that the then King of Persia had sent an embassy to Kublai 
Khan the Tartar Emperor of China to obtain for his wife a 
daughter of the latter—but that the King of Persia had died 
in A. D. 1291 before the embassy had reached his Court 
conveying the Princess. Maico Polo accompanied the embassy 
on its return voyage ; which commenced in the beginning of 1291 
A. D. The vessels lay three months at Java—and were after this, 
eighteen months in the Indian seas before they got to Persia, and 
the envoys presented themselves at the Court of King Arghun. 
The whole voyage therefore occupied twenty-one months ; which 
the Arabs, who were perhaps then the chief if not the only navi¬ 
gators from the west of the seas to the eastward, now accomplish 
in about the same time that European vessels take. ( 3 ) 
Sir S. Raffles in his History of Java gives us an example of the 
fondness with which the people of the E. Archipelago looked 
towards Rumi. He says after the first discovery of Java (no date) 
the Prince of Rum sent there twenty thousand families to people 
the island. But they all perished by sea) excepting twenty 
families, which returned to Rum It is most probable however 
that this impossible imigration represents one which had been sent 
by the Prince of Kling—but less exaggerated as to numbers. 
The vizier of They Khoten, and the officer who opposed the 
scheme of bank notes in Persia, consulted there the Ambassadors 
from China, who had just arrived from that country, 
‘‘Arghun Khan had sent Amb assadors to Kublai Khan, Emperor 
of Tartary and China to obtain a princess to wife, but he had died 
before their return. They Khaton, who was at the time King Re¬ 
gent, directed that the Chinese princess should be given in marriage 
0 The H, Mr Turnout's introduction to the M£hd«v£nso p. XXXI. 
( 2 ) Marco Polo—p. II to 14. 
0 [See the Remarks on this Voyage, ante vol. II p, 693,] 
