2 A TRANSLATION OF THE KEDDAH ANNALS. 
Archipelago. There are no Pundits as in India, ever ready 
and able to lend their aid to the traveller over the toilsome 
path of Archeology, while political considerations unfortu¬ 
nately operate too frequently against all research. 
The French literati have lately opened a Chinese mine of 
literary and historical wealth. From the proximity of China 
to the most ancient nations of Central Eastern Asia, and the 
long intercourse which has existed between them, we have 
reason to believe that accounts of the ancient condition of 
the latter lie now hidden in the libraries of the former. The 
Pali will not, I suspect, unless where it may occur in Inscrip¬ 
tions, throw any light on the history of any of these regions, 
or unless perhaps where Pali works, having been written in 
India, may contain allusions to countries to the Eastward. 
The present is merely an attempt to throw into shape and 
order some of the loose notes I had already made, during a long 
sojourn to the Eastward, and of journies in various directions. 
But, from their desultory nature, I have thought it advisable 
to introduce them as explanatory commentaries on a transla¬ 
tion of some original and hitherto untranslated native work. 
r f he one selected for this purpose is entitled Mdrong 
Mahawdngsd; which I have carefully, and as literally as the 
Malayan idiom has permitted, translated, only leaving out a 
tedious exordium by the native compiler, quite foreign to 
his subject, and also those repetitions in which he indulges, 
like most oriental writers, without reserve. 
It is a History of Keddah on the Malayan Peninsula ; and, 
independently of any intrinsic value which it may possess, 
it is interesting to the British, since the settlement of 
Penang and Province Wellesley once formed an integral 
portion of the country of Kedddh. 
This Keddah is the Quida of the maps, and a Siamese 
province, although chiefly peopled by Malays. It is about 
110 to 120 miles long, with a varying breadth of from about 
20 to 30 or 40 miles at most. It is very fertile in grain. 
Cattle abound in its plains, and its hills yield rich tin ore, 
and perhaps gold. 
I received the history from the hands of the late Raja, 
whose Malayan title was Sultan Ahmed Sajoodln (Aladinj, 
Halim Shah, and whose Siamese title was Chau Pangeran, 
who in an evil hour had been led by bad advice to throw off 
his allegiance to Siam and had fled to Penang.* 
* His flight was occasioned by a sudden invasion of Keddh by a Siamese 
orce in 1821 ,—an invasion memorable for the atrocities which attended and 
the desolation which followed it.— Ed, 
