INTRODUCTION. THE Malayan biographical tract of which the following is a translation, appears to have been chiefly drawn up, from time to time as the circumstances occurred, by the principal member of the family whose history it relates, and subsequently added to and finally arranged by one of his younger sons, whose name of 'La-uddin is found at the conclusion of the manuscript. The date of it he has neglected to insert; but the omission is supplied, with sufficient accuracy, by his mentioning the name of the English gentleman at whose desire the transcript was made, and who is known to have been Chief of the district in which the writer had taken up his abode, about the year 1788. A deficiency, however, of a more serious kind exists, in there not being any statements throughout the manuscript, of the years in which the several occurrences took place, although the intervals of time between each are carefully |