WITH INDIA AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
609 
lapse of 2 or 3 days, rises on the horizon. They now turn to the 
S.E. along the coast of Anam, which they keep in view for about 4 
days, and then make for the mountain ot Kuntun (Pulo Condor). 
This is, as it appears to have in Marco Polo’s time, the great lead¬ 
ing mark of the voyage.* When necessary they touch and take in 
water here. From Condor to Wa Svva (Bintang hill) they are 
guided by the numerous and well marked islands which lie in the 
western borders of the China Sea. Td Pwa, which appears to be 
Tiom&n, is a leading mark. Bintang hill serves as a finger post, guid¬ 
ing the junks for Singapore into the strait, and those for Java south¬ 
ward along the outer coast of the Johore Archipelago. The length 
of Marco Polo’s voyage from Amoy to Sumatra, three months, is al¬ 
so insisted on by Mr. Crawfurd, who considers that a Chinese junk 
would now perform it in probably one fourth of the time. But it 
being certain, we think, that the voyage terminated on the northern 
coast of Sumatra, it is quite possible for a fleet of 14 junks which 
required to keep together to take 3 months at the present time to 
accomplish a similar voyage. A Chinese trader who has come an¬ 
nually to Singapore in junks for many years tells us that he has had 
as long a passage as 60 days, although the average length is 18 to 20 
days. 
Great uncertainty and contrariety of opinion have prevailed in the 
identification of the kingdoms in Sumatra mentioned by Marco Polo. 
Mr. Marsden, with all his local knowledge and extensive acquaint¬ 
ance with Malayan literature, appears to have overlooked the proba¬ 
bility of the voyager’s knowledge of the island being confined to the 
part of the coast which he visited, the only part too with which the 
Arab and Chinese traders between India and China were likely to be 
familiar. Having correctly identified the first three kingdoms, it 
is curious that the circumstance of their being mentioned in the exact 
geographical order in which they would be visited by a voyager, who 
had come up the straits of Malacca and passed along the north coast 
of Sumatra, did not suggest to him the possibility of the others be¬ 
ing found on the north coast also. Mr. Hugh Murray, the latest edi¬ 
tor of Marco Polo, rejects all Mr. Marsden’s localities, and attempts 
to include a little of every side of the island. The Sijara Malayu en- 
* Marco Polo calls the Condor islands, Sondur and Condur. The San-, 
derfulat ^Sander Pulo) of the Arab traveller of the 9ih century, “an 
island which has fresh water” and one month’s sail from China, is also, 
without doubt, Pulo Condor, 
