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further the fact that it is not included in his list of Sumatran kingdoms, wherefore it seems probable that in his day there existed a Malayan state of considerable importance, possibly upon the island on which the town of Singapore now stands.

Sumatra, or "Java the Less," is dealt with in somewhat greater detail. In speaking of Ferlec (Pĕrlak) he says:

"This kingdom, you must know, is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the Law of Mahommet—I mean the townspeople only, for the hill-people live for all the world like beasts, and eat human flesh, clean or unclean. And they worship this, that, and the other thing; for in fact the first thing they see on rising in the morning, that they do worship for the rest of the day."

We have here yet another proof of the frequency with which the Arab merchants resorted to Malaya, and a hint at the length of that intercourse, for even the more civilised sections of a community do not become converted to an alien faith save after long and intimate association with its professors.

Basma (Pâsei), another Sumatran State, declared itself, Marco Polo tells us, to be subject to the Great Kaan, though it paid him no regular tribute, only sending him presents from time to time. Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveller, when he returned from China some fifty years later, made the voyage in a ship which belonged to "the King of Sumatra” who had been to pay homage to the Emperor, and it is possible that this Muhammadan potentate may