ingapura. During
three years he withstood the forces of the king of Maja-pahit, but in
1252, being hard pressed, he retired first to the northward, and
afterwards to the western, coast of the peninsula, where in the following
year he founded a new city, which under his wise government became of
considerable importance. To this he gave the name of Malaka, from a
fruit-bearing tree so called (myrabolanum) found in abundance on the hill
which gives natural strength to the situation. Having reigned here
twenty-two years, beloved by his subjects and feared by his neighbours,
Iskander Shah died in 1274, and was succeeded by Sultan Magat, who
reigned only two years. Up to this period the Malayan princes were
pagans. Sultan Muhammed Shah, who ascended the throne in 1276, was the
first Mahometan prince, and by the propagation of this faith acquired
great celebrity during a long reign of fifty-seven years. His influence
appears to have extended over the neighbouring islands of Lingga and
Bintan, together with Johor, Patani, Kedah, and Perak, on the coasts of
the peninsula, and Campar and Aru in Sumatra; all of which acquired the
appellative of Malayo, although it was now more especially applied to the
people of Malaka, or, as it is commonly written, Malacca. He left the
peaceful possession of his dominions to his son Sultan Abu Shahid, who
had reigned only one year and five months when he was murdered in 1334 by
the king of Arrakan, with whose family his father had contracted a
marriage. His successor was Sultan Modafar or Mozafar Shah, who was
distinguished for the wisdom of his government, of which he left a
memorial in a Book of Institutes or Laws of Malaka, held to this day in
high estimation. This city was now regarded as the third in rank (after
Maja-pahit on Java, and Pase on Sumatra) in that part of the East.

(*Footnote. The account given by Juan de Barros of the abandonment of the
Malayan city of Singapura and foundation of Malacca differs materially
from the above; and although the authority of a writer, who collected his
materials in Lisbon, cannot be put in competition with that of Valentyn,
who passed a long and laborious life amongst the people, and quotes the
native historians, I shall give an abstract of his relation, from the
sixth book of the second Decade. "At the period when Cingapura flourished
its king was named Sangesinga; and in the neighbouring island of Java
reigned Pararisa, upon whose death the latter