from those places to
Achin, to the number of twenty-two thousand persons. But this barbarous
policy did not produce the effect he hoped; for the unhappy people, being
brought naked to his dominions, and not allowed any kind of maintenance
on their arrival, died of hunger in the streets. In the planning his
military enterprises he was generally guided by the distresses of his
neighbours, for whom, as for his prey, he unceasingly lay in wait; and
his preparatory measures were taken with such secrecy that the execution
alone unravelled them. Insidious political craft and wanton delight in
blood united in him to complete the character of a tyrant.

It must here be observed that, with respect to the period of this
remarkable reign, the European and Malayan authorities are considerably
at variance, the latter assigning to it something less than thirty solar
years, and placing the death of Iskander Muda in December 1636. The
Annals further state that he was succeeded by sultan
Ala-eddin-Mahayat-shah, who reigned only about four years and died in
February 1641. That this is the more accurate account I have no
hesitation in believing, although Valentyn, who gives a detail of the
king's magnificent funeral, was persuaded that the reign which ended in
1641 was the same that began in 1607. But he collected his information
eighty years after the event, and as it does not appear that any European
whose journal has been given to the world was on the spot at that period,
the death of an obscure monarch who died after a short reign may well
have been confounded by persons at a distance with that of his more
celebrated predecessor. Both authorities however are agreed in the
important fact that the successor to the throne in 1641 was a female.
This person is described by Valentyn as being the wife of the old king,
and not his daughter, as by some had been asserted; but from the Annals
it appears that she was his daughter, named Taju al-alum; and as it was
in her right that Maghayat-shah (certainly her husband), obtained the
crown, so upon his decease, there being no male heir, she peaceably
succeeded him in the government, and became the first queen regent of
Achin. The succession having thenceforward continued nearly sixty years
in the female line, this may be regarded as a new era in the history of
the country. The nobles finding their power less restrained, and their
individual consequence more felt under an administration of this kind