relates to my home I know. King Emmanuel of Portugal wrote to his High Kadi
at Rome, that his general, the cruel Albuquerque, had sailed to the Aurea
Chersonese, called by the natives Malacca, and found an enormous city of
twenty-five thousand houses, that abounded in spices, gold, pearls, and precious
stones. Was Montezuma’s capital greater?” he triumphantly asked.
“It was as great then as Singapore is today. Albuquerque captured it, and built a
fortress at the mouth of the river, making the walls fifteen feet thick, all from the
ruins of our mosques. This was in 1513.”
“Forgive me,” I said hastily, “if I have seemed to cast doubt on the relative
importance of your country.”
There was a Malay kampong, or village, to our right. Under the heavy green and
yellow fronds of a cocoanut grove were a half-dozen picturesque palm-thatched
houses. They were built up on posts six feet from the ground, and a dozen men
and children scampered down their rickety ladders, as a shrill blast from our
whistle aroused them from their slumbers. Pressed against the wooden bars of
their low, narrow windows, we could make out the comely, brown faces of the
women. The punghulo, or chief, walked sedately out to the beach, and touched
his forehead to the ground as he recognized his superior. The sunlight broke
through the enwrapping cocoanuts, and brought out dazzling white splotches on
the sandy floor before the houses. We passed a little space of wiry lallang grass,
which was waving in the faint breeze, and radiating long, irregular lines of heat,
that under our glasses resembled the marking of watered silk, and were once
more abreast the green walls of the impenetrable jungle.
“The Dato Mamat captured a Portuguese ship within a man’s voice from the
harbor of Malacca. On it was the foreign Governor’s daughter. She was dark,
almost as dark as my people. Her eyes were black as night, with long, drooping
lashes, and her hair fell about her shapely neck, a mass of waving curls. She was
tall and stately, and her bearing was haughty. The mighty Laksamana, who had
fought a hundred battles, and had a hundred wives picked from the princesses of
the kingdom,—for there were none so noble but felt honored in his smiles,—
loved this dark-skinned foreigner. It was pitiful!
“His great fleet, which was to have swept the very name of the Portuguese from
the face of the earth, lay idle before the harbor. Its captains were burning with