Review of "Malay Annals by Dr John Leyden"

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Art. II. Malay Annals: translated from the Malay Language, by the late Dr. John Leyden. With an Introduction, by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R. S., &c. 8vo. pp. 361. 10s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1821.

We have already spoken with deserved commendation of Dr. Leyden, and the products of his unwearied diligence. He was endued, as a poet, with a chaste if not a powerful fancy; and the few years which he spent in India were dedicated perhaps to a somewhat diffusive, but on the whole a successful study of its various dialects. We have indeed heard, though possibly not on indisputable authority, that his promptitude in the acquisition of languages rendered him too inattentive to their elements, and that he himself was too prone to over-rate the extent of his own acquirements: but, be this as it may, he had mastered the parent tongue, the Sanskrit; and the others which were connected with it by. affinity, descent, or analogy, became from habitual attention almost familiar to him.

Among the MSS. left by this indefatigable student, were the Malay Annals now published by Sir Thomas Raffles; the fruit of a residence in the eastern archipelago in the year 1805, before those interesting islands were occupied by the British authorities. Since that time, the public attention has been so much directed to them, and so much light has been thrown on the nature and resources of the Malayan archipelago, with the extent, character, and pursuits of its inhabitants, that a large portion of the reading community in Great Britain has begun to feel no slight share of interest in details respecting them.

Many of our readers, however, may not object to some farther information concerning this almost unexplored region; and we shall therefore make no apology for supplying them with a few general facts, derived from our own knowlege, and, may we be allowed to add, from our own experience? It is an interesting subdivision of the globe; and the works of Stavorinus and Valentyn in former days, with the more recent narratives of Marsden, Sir George Staunton, M. Tombe, and the French traveller Leschenault, not to mention Drake in Purchas's and Dampier in Harris's collection, may not be generally accessible.

More than a century before the Dutch name was known in India, the Portuguese had established themselves in the East. They marched uninterruptedly to wealth and dominion, and Lisbon was the great emporium for Indian commodities: but they were transient and short-lived acquisitions. Indolence, the child of luxury, had so enervated the successors of Vasco

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de Gama, that they became a corrupt and enervated race; - a memorable lesson to mankind, that the acquisitions of industry and valor are to be retained only by the virtues which first obtained them. In the mean while, the United Provinces, by a combination of favorable circumstances, had risen to a considerable rank among the western states; and, about the end of the sixteenth century, they had begun to extend their mercantile enterprizes to the Indian seas. Hence arose the celebrated Dutch East India Company. In point of fact, that company was nursed into greatness by English protection; and with a gratitude proverbially Dutch, in return for that protection, it set on foot expedients the most ruinous to our mercantile establishments, expelled our traders, and carried on intrigues with the natives to cripple and destroy our commerce.

The avarice of the Portuguese outlived their power: but the puny posterity of their hardy adventurers made little or no resistance to preserve their settlements from the Dutch. That power was first planted in Java in 1595, about one hundred and eighty years after the establishment of Mohammedanism, and eighty-four years after that of the Portuguese. During the twenty year's which elapsed between their arrival and the foundation of Batavia, Java underwent a considerable revolution; and Cheribon, Bantam, and Jacatra lost their independence, being swallowed up by an ambitious family, (Mataram,) who over-ran the best portion of the island. The stupid and ignorant traders of the sixteenth century, however, had no views beyond the profit of the day. They considered commerce as a game in which the cunning and intelligence of the one party were opposed to the simplicity and weakness of the other; and, finding the advantage not on a level with the calculations of their avarice, fraud and dexterity not being always successful purveyors, they profited by these internal dissensions, and summoned force and cruelty to their aid.

Such were the auspices under which the Dutch intercourse began with Java, and the superstructure corresponded to the foundations. It lasted two centuries: but, during this period of a remorseless covetousness on one side, and a fearful distrust on the other, on the part of the Javanese arose a rooted hatred of every thing European; and that interesting people, whom an intercourse with milder and more humane conquerors might have disciplined to the art3 and religion of Europe, sullenly rejected every invention of life, and every institution of society, by which their moral and social condition might have been improved. In consequences at its capture

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by the British arms in 1810, Java was with respect to civilization just as it was when its connection with the Dutch began two hundred years before. It is a hateful subject! - The island was unfortunately restored to the Dutch at the peace of 1814; and we will not revive the question as to the policy or good faith of the measure. Yet how can we forbear to imagine to ourselves the improvement of a mild and docile nation, during the comparatively short space that had intervened under the mild and humane policy of a British government; which, instead of holding its ascendancy by the right of conquest, or the authority of force, has universally built it on the basis of mutual advantage and pacific intercourse. We call to our memory with sorrow the auguries with which we hailed the conquest, when we exclaimed, in the language of the poet,

"Etjam non telum, sed visit nobilis arbor

Non expectatas dabit anhelantibus umbras."

At this period, Sir Stamford Raffles, who has been indefatigable in the study of the languages and customs of Java and the rest of the Archipelago, was the resident at Batavia. No man is better acquainted with all that pertains to these islands; and we therefore present to our readers a part of his preliminary essay to this volume, in which a much, larger portion of good sense and philosophy is to be found than in all the lucubrations of other diplomatists put together.

' From the period at which Europeans first visited these islands, their civil history may be summed up in few words; it is included in that of their commerce. The extensive trade of these islands had long collected at certain natural and advantageous emporia; of these Bautain, Achau, Malacca, and Macasser, were the principal. The valour of Portugal broke the power of the native -states, and left them exposed to the more selfish policy of their successors. The Dutch had no sooner established their capital.at Batavia, than, not satisfied with transferring to it the emporiumof Bautan, they conceived the idea of making it the sole and only depot of the commerce of the Archipelago. Had this object been combined with a liberal policy, and had the local, circumstances of Batavia not obstructed it, the effect might have been different, and, instead of the ruin and desolation which ensued throughout a large portion of these islands, they might have advanced in civilization, while they contributed to raise the prosperity and support the ascendancy of the Dutch metropolis. But when we advert to the greedy policy which swallowed up the resources of this extensive Archipelago in a narrow and rigid monopoly; and that, instead of leaving trade to accumulate, as it had previously done at the natural emporia, it was forced, by means of arbitrary and restrictive regulations, into one which,

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independent of other disadvantages, soon proved the grave of the majority of those who were obliged to resort to it, we shall find the cause which made it as ruinous to the Dutch as to the people. By attempting too much, they lost what, under other circumstances, might have been turned to advantage, and the native states, deprived of their fair share of commerce, abandoned all attempts, and sunk into the comparative insignificance in which they were found at the period when our traders began to navigate those seas from Madras and Bengal. The destruction of the native trade of the Archipelago by this withering policy may be considered as the origin of many of the evils, and of all the piracies, of which we now complain. A maritime and commercial people, suddenly deprived of all honest employment, or the means of respectable subsistence, either sunk into apathy and indolence, or expended their natural energies in piratical attempts to recover, by force and plunder, what they had been deprived of by policy and fraud. In this state of decay, they continued to degenerate, till the appearance of the British traders revived their suppressed and nearly extinguished energies, and awoke to new life the commerce and enterprise of this interesting portion of the globe. The decline and corruption of the Dutch power in the East offered little obstruction; as our intercourse increased, their establishments were withdrawn, and long before the conquest of Java, and, indeed, before the last war, the English had already possessed themselves of the largest portion of this trade.

' When we consider the extent of this unparalleled Archipelago; the vanity and peculiar character of its people; the infinity of its resources; its contiguity to China and Japan, the most populous regions of the earth; and the extraordinary facilities it affords to commerce, from the smoothness of its seas, the number and excellence of its harbours, and the regularity of its monsoons ; it would be vain to assign limits, or to say how far and wide the tide of commerce might not have flowed, or how great the progress of civilization might not have been, had they been allowed to pursue their free and uninterrupted course, protected and encouraged by a more enlightened and liberal government. Had the commerce been properly conducted, the advantages must have been reciprocal; if it enriched the one party, it must have raised the other in the scale of civilization; by creating new wants, it must have opened new sources of enjoyment, encouraged industry and emulation.

' The prejudice which has so long existed against the Malays is fast subsiding. Among the Malay states, we shall find none of the obstacles which exist among the more civilized people of India to the reception of new customs and ideas. Of the extensive and varied population inhabiting the Eastern Archipelago, and the continent adjacent, the gradations of civilization are wide, from the rude untutored Harafora, to the comparatively civilized Jovan and Siamese; but the absence of inveterate prejudice, and a spirit of enterprise and freedom, distinguish the whole. In the interior of the larger islands, the population is almost exclusively

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devoted to agriculture; but, on the coasts, the adventurous character of the Bugguese, and the speculative industry of the Chinese, have given a stimulus and direction to the energies of the maritime and commercial states. Establishments are formed on each of the principal rivers; and while the less civilized inhabitant of the country is engaged in collecting its valuable raw products, in traversing the woods, and sweeping the shores, these native merchants become the carriers to the more distant markets. The natural demands and necessities which must exist in so extensive an Archipelago, in which the employment and condition of the inhabitants are so various, give rise to a constant intercourse between them, and consequently to an extensive native trade, which, from its nature, must be beyond the reach of fiscal regulation.

' The whole of this population, at least, on the Malay peninsula, and throughout the islands, have imbibed a taste for Indian and European manufactures, and the demand is only limited by their means. Artificial impediments may, for a time, have checked these means; but in countries where, independently of the cultivation of the soil, the treasures of the mines seem inexhaustible, and the raw produce of its forests has in all ages been in equal demand, it is not easy to fix limits to the extension of these means. These people have not undergone the same artificial moulding; they are fresher from the hand of nature, and the absence of bigotry and inveterate prejudice leaves them much more open to receive new impressions, and adopt new examples. Whatever may have been their original religion, its character does not appear to have been deeply imprinted, and they have carried the same moderate and temperate spirit into their new faith. They have no knowledge of the odious distinction of castes, but mingle indiscriminately in all society. With a high reverence for ancestry, and nobility of descent, they are more influenced by, and quicker discerners of superiority of individual talent, than is usual among people not far advanced in civilization. They are addicted to commerce, which has already given them a taste for luxuries, and this propensity they indulge to the utmost of their means. Among a people so unsophisticated, and so free from prejudices, it is obvious that a greater scope is given to the influence of example; that, in proportion as their intercourse with Europeans encreases, and a free commerce adds to their resources, along with the wants which will be created, and the luxuries supplied, the humanizing arts of life will also find their way, and we may anticipate a much more rapid improvement, than in nations who, having once arrived at a high point of civilization, and retrograded in the scale, are now hardened by the recollection of what they once were, are brought up in a contempt for every thing beyond their own narrow circle, and who have, for centuries, bent under the double load of foreign tyranny and priestly intolerance. When these striking and important differences are taken into the account, we may be permitted to indulge more sanguine expectations of improvement among the tribes of the eastern isles. We may look forward to an early abolition of piracy and illicit traffic, when the seas shall be

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open to the free current of commerce. , Restriction and oppression have too often converted their shores to scenes of rapine and violence; but an opposite policy and more enlightened principles. may, ere long, subdue and remove the evil. In the spirit of personal independence which distinguishes these people, their high sense of honour, and the habits of reasoning and reflection to which they are accustomed from their infancy, are to be found the rudiments of improvement, and the basis on which a better order of society may be, established.

- 'Such were the opinions entertained by Leyden, previous to the conquest of Java; and the peculiar interest which these people excite, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the general feeling which exists towards them, on the part of every Englishman who has since been among them, and become more intimately acquainted with their character: notwithstanding their piracies, and the vices usually attributed to them in their present state, there is something in the Malayan character which is congenial to British minds, and which leaves an impression, very opposite to that which a much longer intercourse has given of the more subdued and cultivated natives of Hindostan. Retaining much of that boldness which marks the Tartar stock, from whence they are supposed to have sprung, they have acquired a softness, not less remarkable in their manners, than in their language. Few people attend more to the courtesies of society. Among many of them, traces "of a higher state of civilization are obvious; and where opportunity has been afforded, even in our own times, they have been found capable of receiving a high state of intellectual improvement.'

Having given this extract from the introduction, we have exhausted the most valuable portion of the volume: for the Malay Annals themselves, on which Dr. Leyden expended so many laborious vigils, will probably be considered as much heavier than the worst nonsense that has ever issued from the press. To prove our assertion, and to shew that we do not deal in gratuitous criticism on subjects with which we profess ourselves to be somewhat acquainted, we will finish our article by a few specimens from the commencement of these documents:

' It happened on a time that Raja Secander, the son of Raja Darab of Rum, of the race of Makaduniah, the name of whose empire was Zulkarneini, wished to see the rising of the sun; and with this view he reached the confines of the land of Hind. There was a raja in Hindostan, named Raja Kida Hindi, who was very powerful, and whose empire extended over the half of Hindostan, and immediately on the approach of Raja Secander, he sent his prime minister to collect his forces, and marched out to meet him. The armies engaged, and a fine battle ensued, as is recorded fully in the history of Raja Secander. In fine, Raja Kida Hindi was defeated and taken prisoner, and embraced the true faith, according to the law of the prophet Ibrahim, the friend

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of God; after which he was sent back to his own country. This Raja Kida Hindi had a daughter extremely beautiful and handsome, whose face glittered and shone like the sun, and whose understanding and qualities were equally remarkable, and she was named Shaher-ul Beriali. After sending his head minister, Perdana Mantri, to consult with the prophet Khizei, who was the minister of Raja Secander, he married his daughter to Raja Secander, who agreed to pay as her dowry 300,000 denars of gold, and carried her with him on his visit to the rising sun, after tarrying ten days in honour of the ceremony. On his return, however, her father requested her to remain some time with him, to which Raja Secander agreed, and took his departure.

' It is stated by the relater of this story, that the Princess Shaherul Beriali, the daughter of Raja Kida Hindi, became pregnant by Raja Secander, but Raja Secander was unacquainted with this circumstance, nor was the princess acquainted with it herself, till a month after her return to her father. She at last informed her father that a cessation of her courses had taken place for two months, at which he was greatly delighted, considering that her pregnancy was by Raja Secander, and therefore treated her with all requisite attention. At the expiration of the months, the princess was safely delivered of a son, whom Raja Kida Hindi named Araston Shah, and who in every respect was the perfect picture of his father Raja Secander Zulkarneini. Raja Araston Shah married the daughter of the raja of Turkestan, by whom he had a son named Raja Aftas.

' After the space of forty-five years, Raja Secander returned to Makedonia, and Raja Kida Hindi died, and left as his successor on the throne Raja Araston Shah, who reigned 350 years, and then died. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Raja Aftas, who reigned 120 years, and then died. He was succeeded by Ascayinat, who reigned three years, and died. He was succeeded by Casidas, who reigned twelve years, and died. He was succeeded by Amatubusu, who reigned thirteen years. He was succeeded by Raja Zamzeyus, who reigned seven years, and died. He was succeeded by Kharus Cainat, who reigned thirty years, and died. He was succeeded by Raja Arhat Sacayinat. After his death* he was succeeded by Raja Cudarzuguhan the son of Raja Amatubusu. After him reigned Raja Nicabus, who reigned forty years, and died. After him reigned Raja Ardasir Migan, who married the daughter of Raja Nashirwan Atlel, sovereign of the east and west, by whom he had a son, named Raja Derma Unus. After him succeeded on the throne his grandson Tarsi Bardaras, the son of Raja ZamTut, who was the son of Shah Tarsi Narsi, who. was the son of Raja Derma Unus, who was the son of Ardasir Babegan, who was the son of Raja Cuduri Gudurz Zuguhan, who was the son of Raja Amatubusu, who was the son of Raja Sabur, who was the son' of Raja Aftas, who was the son of Raja Araston Shah, who was the son of Secander Zulkarneini.

' Raja Narsi Barderas married the daughter of Raja Salan, the raja of Amdaa Nayara, who, it is asserted by some, was the grandson of Raja Nashirwan Adel, the son of Raja Kobad Shah Shah-

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riar, who was raja of the east and west. This Raja Sulan was the mightiest prince of the lands of Hind and Sind, and of all the rajas under the wind (i. e. towards the west, the wind being supposed to rise with the sun). By the princess his daughter, Raja Narsi had three sons; 1. Raja Heiran, who reigned in the country of Hindostan. 2. Raja Suran, whom Raja Sulan took and installed in his own place. 3. Raja Panden, who reigned in Turkestan. After a short time Raja Sulan died, and his grandson Raja Suran reigned in his place in Amdan Nagara, with still greater authority than his predecessor, and all the rajas of the east and west acknowledged his allegiance, excepting the land of China, which was not subject to him. Then Raja Suran Padshah formed the design of subjugating China, and for this purpose his men at arms, and the rajas dependent on him, assembled from every quarter with their hosts, to the number of one thousand and two lacs. With this prodigious host, he advanced against China, and in his course, the forests were converted into open plains; the earth shook, and the hills moved; the lofty grounds became level, and the rocks flew off in shivers, and the large rivers were dried up to the mud. Two months they marched on without delay, and the darkest night was illuminated by the light of their armour like the lustre of the full moon; and the noise of the thunder could not be heard for the loud noise of the champions and warriors, mixed with the cries of horses and elephants. Every country which Raja Suran approached, he subdued and reduced under his subjection, till at last he approached the country of Gangga Nagara, the raja of which was named Ganggi Shah Juana, which city is situated on a hill of very steep approach in front, but of easy access in the rear. Its fort was situated on the banks of the river Dinding, in the vicinity of Perak. When Raja Ganggi Shah Juana heard of the approach of Raja Suran, he summoned all his vassals, and ordered the gates of his fortresses to be shut, and stationed his guards for their protection. He also directed his moats to be filled with water. The host of Raja Suran quickly surrounded his fortresses, and attacked them sharply, but were vigorously repulsed. On this, Raja Suran mounted his huge elephant, and approached the gate of the fortress, notwithstanding the showers of spears and arrows with which he was assailed; he smote the gate with his chacra, and it immediately tumbled down, while the raja entered the fort with all his champions. When Raja Ganggi Shah Juana saw Raja Suran, he seized his bow and smote the elephant of Raja Suran on the forehead, which instantly fell down. Raja Suran quickly sprung up and drew his sword, and smote off the head of Raja Ganggi Shah Juana. After the death of the raja, all his subjects submitted to Raja Suran, who married Putri Gangga, the beautiful sister of Raja Ganggi Shah Juana. From Gangga Nagara, Raja Suran advanced to the country of Glang Kiu, which in former times was a great country, possessing a fort of black stone up the river Johor. In the Siamese language, this word signifies the place of the emerald (Khlang Khiaw) but by persons ignorant of this language, it is usually

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termed Glang Kiu. The name of the raja of this country was Raja Chulan, who was superior to all the rajas of the countries lying under the wind. '

No account of Dr. Leyden accompanies this volume, but the public had been already put in possession of his memoirs by Mr. Morton. (See M. R. vol.xci. p. 61.)