towards the south," (Martaban,) and in due time reached their destination.

Varthema correctly describes the Pegu of his day as a great city, situated to the west of a beautiful river, containing "good houses and palaces built of stone, with lime," and as being enclosed within a wall. The old town has long since disappeared, but Symes tells us that its extent may still be traced by the remains of the ditch which surrounded it, and that the bricks from its ruins now pave the streets of the new town. Among the vegetable productions of the kingdom, its splendid timber-trees and enormous bamboos, and, among the animals, the abundance of civet-cats, are particularly noticed. The chief merchandize of the place was in jewels, and the mines of Capellan, which Tavernier a century and a half later locates in a mountain twelve days' journey from Sirian, are mentioned as the great source of rubies.

In his account of the Peguese army, our author makes the singular statement that it contained one thousand Christians like those found in Sarnau, meaning thereby Nestorians. As there is not the slightest evidence to prove that so large a number of native Christians ever existed in Pegu, I have been led to suppose that Varthema had heard that many of the soldiers, like the Buddhists in general, believed in a trinity, or, as Yule explains it in commenting on a similar remark made by Nicolò de' Conti," the Triad of Buddha, Dharma, and Sanga," and incontinently christianized them. The same writer, in another place, quotes the old Geographer in Ramusio as iden

tifying the Hindû Triad with the Christian doctrine in personal detail:-" All the country of Malabar believes in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this, beginning at Cambay, and ending at Bengal."1

Finding that the King was absent on an expedition against the King of Ava, our party hired "a ship, made all of one piece," and set forth in search of him, their course being, as may be presumed, down the river of Pegu and then up the Irawaddy. Not being able to reach Ava on account of the war, they retraced their steps, and on the return of the King five days after were admitted to an audience of His Majesty, who was so bedizened with jewels that, if seen by night, "he appears to be a sun." The Christians, who acted as interpreters on the occasion, apprised him of the merchandize which Cogiazenor had brought for sale; but that business was deferred to the day after the next, "because the next day the King had to sacrifice to the devil for the victory which he had gained" over his Avan enemies. The account which Varthema gives of the subsequent interview reveals the craft of the Persian in placing his corals at the King's disposal for the mere honour of having them accepted by royalty. The artifice was eminently successful; for although the King was unable to pay in ready cash, owing to the heavy expenditure occasioned by two years' war, he gave the wily merchant a handful of rubies for his corals, and presented the Christians with two rubies each.

1 Friar Jordanus, p. 24, note.

"Wherefore," remarks our author, "he may be considered the most liberal King in the world;" adding for our information that his principal revenue was derived from the lac and sandal-wood, brazil-wood and cotton, which the country produced in great abundance. Five days after, news arrived that the King of Ava was marching to attack the King of Pegu, and as the latter left the city with a large army to encounter him, our party embarked on board a ship and in eight days reached Malacca.

Near this place was a river twenty-five miles wide, called "Gaza." This was undoubtedly the Straits of Malacca, which are about that width between the mainland and the opposite island of Rupat, and the name is most probably a contraction of Bogház, the common Arabic designation of a strait. As Varthema describes their course from Pegu as being "towards the west," he had evidently a very incorrect idea of the geography of the peninsula. The country about Malacca was not very fertile, but it abounded in fruits and different kinds of birds and animals, and the commerce carried on at the port was very extensive, for "more ships arrived there than at any other place in the world." The natives generally were a bad race, and foreign merchants slept on board their ships to avoid assassination. Distinct from the more civilized community of the place, who dressed after the manner of Cairo, there was another class who set the local authorities at defiance, and who did not care to reside on land because they were men of the sea." I have pointed

out in my annotations on the text how strikingly this part of Varthema's narrative is corroborated by the learned researches of Mr. Crawfurd. "Men of the Sea" is the literal translation of the Malay Orang-laut, or sea-gipsies, who are to be found sojourning from Sumatra to the Moluccas. The only habitations of this people are their boats, and they live exclusively by the produce of the sea, or by the robberies which they commit on it.

The next place to which our party proceeded was Pider in the island of Sumatra, which Varthema locates about eighty leagues from the mainland,—a correct estimate if measured from the coast directly opposite, but nearly twice that distance from Malacca. After portraying the physical features of the people, and remarking that their religion and customs, that of Sati included, were like those of Tenasserim, Varthema describes the currency as consisting of gold, silver, and tin coins, "all stamped, having a devil [idol] on one side, and something resembling a chariot drawn by elephants on the other." This statement is somewhat in opposition to Mr. Crawfurd, who says that the natives of the Archipelago generally had no coined money prior to the arrival of the Europeans; but this conclusion is modified by the exception of Java, and more especially of Achin, where he states that a gold coin existed inscribed with Arabic characters, bearing the names of the sovereigns under whom it was struck, from which it may be inferred that the date of coinage was subsequent to the establishment of Islamism in that province.

Still, as Ibn Batuta found a Muhammedan sovereign reigning at Sumatra in the fourteenth century, and as Achin was most likely the place which he touched at in that island, there is nothing incredible in Varthema's account of the different coins current at Pedir in his time; for Pedir is the next adjoining province to Achin, and was probably at some period tributary to that state. It is possible, however, that some of these coins were imported in the course of trade with the continent of India, for Varthema describes one street of Pedir as occupied by five hundred money-changers, and associates the remark with the great number of foreign merchants who carried on an extensive traffic at the place. As a colony of Hindûs still exists at Malacca, whose profession it is to try gold by the touch and to refine it, it is not unlikely that the money-changers at Pedir were also natives of India; and, if so, the importation of Indian money is readily accounted for. Perhaps some one learned in oriental numismata may succeed, where I have failed, in identifying the devices on Varthema's stamped money of Pedir with some of the old Hindu coins.

In his enumeration of the natural productions of Sumatra, our author includes most of those peculiar to the island, such as pepper, specifying the long pepper, of which he gives a detailed description; benzoin; different qualities of sandal-wood, the eaglewood of commerce; and silk, both domestic and wild. With regard to the latter article, Crawfurd says, in commenting on a similar statement made by De Barros, that it is probably an error, as he is not