HISTORY OF THE MALAYS. 375 tliat the Malays were ever possessed of a national era or kalendai*. Arabian and Persian names and titles are given to the Hindu sovereigns of a peo- ple who had not yet embraced the Mahomedan re- ligion. The reigns are unnaturally long. The new establishment at Singapura is stated to have excited the jealousy of the Javanese kingdom of Mojopa- hit, before, according to Javanese record, Mojopa- hit itself had any existence ; and the Malays are stated to have been driven from Singapura by the Javanese of Mojopahit, a transaction upon which Javanese story is wholly silent. Notwithstanding these suspicious circumstances in the detail of events, the main points may be re- lied upon, and we may conclude, — that an extensive emigration took place from Sumatra to the extremi- ty of the peninsula ; — that some Javanese drove the settlers from Singapura to Malacca ; — that six sove- reigns reigned before the conversion to Mahome- danism ; — and that this event took place about the year ITl^, in the reign of Mahomed Shah, for now the Mahomedans may claim the prerogative of imposing their own names, and determining datos by their peculiar kalendar. Prom facts brought forward in the above narra- tive, we are enabled to ofler plausible conjectures respecting the name of the Malayan tribes. One of the four great tribes into which the parent race is subdivided is called Malay u. It was this, as Mr
