matra, and for about 116 years after, little
can be known, because the writers, whose works have reached us, lived
since the period of conversion, and as good Mahometans would have thought
it profane to enter into the detail of superstitions which they regard
with abhorrence; but from the internal evidence we can entertain little
doubt of its having been the religion of Brahma, much corrupted however
and blended with the antecedent rude idolatry of the country, such as we
now find it amongst the Battas. Their proper names or titles are
obviously Hindu, with occasional mixture of Persian, and their mountain
of Maha-meru, elsewhere so well known as the seat of Indra and the dewas,
sufficiently points out the mythology adopted in the country. I am not
aware that at the present day there is any mountain in Sumatra called by
that name; but it is reasonable to presume that appellations decidedly
connected with Paganism may have been changed by the zealous propagators
of the new faith, and I am much inclined to believe that by the Maha-meru
of the Malays is to be understood the mountain of Sungei-pagu in the
Menangkabau country, from whence issue rivers that flow to both sides of
the island. In the neighbourhood of this reside the chiefs of the four
great tribes, called ampat suku or four quarters, one of which is named
Malayo (the others, Kampi, Pani, and Tiga-lara); and it is probable that
to it belonged the adventurers who undertook the expedition to Ujong
Tanah, and perpetuated the name of their particular race in the rising
fortunes of the new colony. From what circumstances they were led to
collect their vessels for embarkation at Palembang rather than at
Indragiri or Siak, so much more convenient in point of local position,
cannot now be ascertained.

Having proposed some queries upon this subject to the late Mr. Francis
Light, who first settled the island of Pinang or Prince of Wales island,
in the Straits of Malacca, granted to him by the king of Kedah as the
marriage portion of his daughter, he furnished me in answer with the
following notices. "The origin of the Malays, like that of other people,
is involved in fable; every raja is descended from some demigod, and the
people sprung from the ocean. According to their traditions however their
first city of Singapura, near the present Johor, was peopled from
Palembang, from whence they proceeded to settle at Malacca (naming their
city from the fruit so called), and spre