730 TUB HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF MALACCA. 
account of their country can he had, from want of commerce with 
them.” 
Ere I make any remarks on these old accounts of Malacca, I 
would refer to the only two native manuscripts which I have had 
the opportunity of perusing 1 in which reference is made to the foun¬ 
dation of Malacca. The first is the Historical Romance of Hang 1 
Tuah, from which we learn that a colony from Palembang settled 
in Bentan, under one of the Princes of the Royal House of Bukifc 
Siguntang, and that, after some years, the Prince undertook a grand 
hunting party with the view of fixing upon a site for a new capital. 
He is described as leaving Bentan with a fleet of boats and landing 
on Pulo Ledaug where, during a hunt, a white moose deer suddenly 
disappeared, which was considered a decisive omen of this place being 
most suited for a Capital. The Island was ordered to be cleared 
and the officers to whom the execution of the work was entrusted 
fixed upon a spot where grew a Malacca tree as the site of the King’s 
Palace, whence the place was subsequently called, Malacca. No 
dates or means of affixing any date are given In the narrative. 
The second Malayan manuscript which I have perused is one of 
which great use has been made by all who have attempted to give 
anything like a connected narrative of the earlier periods of the Ma¬ 
layan states. Marsden in his History of Sumatra page 327 gives 
nearly a literal translation of this document, not however as a trans¬ 
lation, but as an abstract of the information gleaned by him from 
. the works of certain Dutch Authors* relative to Malayan History, 
from early times to the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese, 
in 1511. Newbold gives a continuation of this same document 
under the appellation of “ Katurutian” or <c genealogy of Johore” 
from the conquest of Malacca to the disputes between the Dutch 
and English relative to Singapore. The authenticity of this do¬ 
cument becomes, a matter of some importance to those who 
may be interested in the subject of the Malays, and in my opi¬ 
nion it is, for many reasons, open to strong suspicions of being 
of European manufacture. That it is not a genuine Malayan 
document is evident I think from the precision of dates, the unin¬ 
terrupted succession of hereditary Prinees during a period of 700 
vears, and the absence of all supernatural agency. Be the value of 
this last manuscript what it may, I am inclined to conclude, from a 
Yalenlyn and others. 
