Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/108
de Miranda, who seems to have sailed round the Malay Peninsula as far as Trĕnggânu (Taranque) on the east coast, whence he made his way to Ayutha overland "with horses and draft oxen." Beyond the bare fact that this journey was undertaken no record of it has been preserved to us, but even in our own time it would be long and arduous, and the traveller would have to make his way, mainly by means of the seashore which here is for the most part sandy, through Kĕlantan, Lěgeh, Pětâni, and Sĕnggôra into Lower Siam, and so along the Isthmus of Kra to the Valley of the Menam. It is difficult to believe that such a journey was really performed by a white man as early as the year 1511 or 1512, the more so since sailing craft of many types and various sizes abound on this coast, and afford far superior means of transport to any which in the same regions are found ashore. There is one fact, however, which lends vraisemblance to the account given to us by the author of the Commentaries concerning the route followed by Antonio de Miranda. The mission to Ayutha would seem to have started from Malacca. shortly before Dalboquerque himself set out on his return to India, that is to say in the autumn of 1511, and by that season the northeast monsoon would have begun to make itself felt. Miranda sailed with the Chinese junks as far as Trĕnggânu, and it is almost certain that by the time he reached that port the strong headwinds would have made further navigation to the northward impossible to native vessels. He would then have to make his choice between wintering in Trĕnggânu