Yol. iii. p. 195. The enemy that Alboquerque had to contend against was certainly both
braver and more skilful and better armed than the American nations over whom a
few years later Cortez and Pizarro gained their victories. The inhabitants of Malacca,
however, when attacked, divided as they were into several different nations, were
not unanimous. Thus shortly after capturing the city, Alboquerque pursued the
king to Muar, and his force is described as having consisted of 400 Portuguese, 600
Javanese and 300 Peguans. In his meditated attack on the city, the commanders
of the Chinese junks anchored in the roads near his fleet, volunteered their assistance
in the storm, but it was declined with thanks, and the reason is characteristic,
although not consistent with the help he afterwards accepted. “ The Portuguese
never accepted assistance when they fought against Moors, for God, through his
apostle, had commanded them to fight them. But he (Alboquerque) requested
them to look on and see how the Portuguese fought.” De Barros—Decade 2d, Book 6,
chapter iv.
The Portuguese held Malacca for 130 years, a period of disaster throughout, in
which with the exception of courage and daring, they exhibited none of the qualities
fit to rule an Asiatic people. Their subjects were Mahomedans, most of those
with whom these maintained commercial relations were of the same religion, and
against the Mahomedan religion the Portuguese declared a crusade from their
first appearance in the Indian seas. Their main object, too, was the establishment of
a commercial monopoly, and they made a piratical war on all who opposed them in
its prosecution. This policy necessarily raised against them a host of enemies. The
expelled Malays made war upon them during their whole occupation of Malacca, and
finally assisted in extruding them. They had hardly got possession when they were
nearly losing it by famine brought on by their own acts. This was immediately
followed by an invasion from Java, and from the kingdom of Achin in Sumatra,
Malacca was invaded no fewer than eight different times. Besides these attacks by
the natives of the different countries of the Archipelago, a far more formidable
enemy, the Dutch, continued to assail them for 40 years, until they at last supplanted
them by the capture of the city.
The Portuguese resisted all these enemies with extraordinary courage and fortitude.
The Dutch had besieged Malacca in 1606 and 1608, and were defeated on both
occasions, and it was not until 1641, and after a blockade, a siege, and an assault that
they succeeded in capturing it, the siege having in all lasted nine months. The
Dutch force had amounted to 1500 men with Malay auxiliaries to the same number,
the storming party to 650. The Portuguese garrison on the capture was found
reduced to 200 Europeans and 400 natives. This was the end of the proud conquest
of Alboquerque and his companions. The Dutch held possession of Malacca until
1795, or for 154 years, when during the war of the French revolution, it was surrendered
by capitulation to the British government, by which it was occupied until
1818, when it was restored to the Netherland government, which exchanged it for
Bencoolen in 1824. Down to 1813, the principles on which all the three European
nations governed the country, were those of an exclusive commercial monopoly, and
the result of this mode of government was, that the country was far poorer than it
had been under its native rulers three centuries before.
MALACCA, city or town, lies in north, latitude 2° 14' and east longitude 102°
12', and on a small river, little better indeed now than a brook. This divides it into
two parts as it did the ancient native town. In 1832, it contained about 12,000
inhabitants, and now about 20,000, or above one-third part of the population of the
whole territory. Immediately behind the town, there is a hill about a hundred feet
high, and on this are the ruins of the Portuguese monasteries of St. Paul and of the
Hermanos de leche with the church of the Madre de Dios, in which once reposed
the ashes of the celebrated apostle of the Indies, St. Francis Xavier, afterwards
transferred to Goa. The fortifications had been complete down to 1807, when
they were most barbarously destroyed by the British government, which at the time
had the absurd intention of transferring the whole population to Penang, 300 miles
distant, and far less convenient as the resort of shipping. Many of the dwellings are
tall many-storied bouses of the architecture of the 16th centuries. The town embraces
a circuit of about a mile. The church on the hill and the original fortifications
were built by Alboquerque, and the conqueror was not scrupulous as to the sources
from which he drew his materials. “ Alfonso Alboquerque,” says De Barros, “ found
stone in the country to burn for lime, and he obtained much hewn stone from
some ancient tombs of the gentiles—those who occupied the hill before the arrival
of the Collates. Moreover, he built a church dedicated to our Lady of ^ Annunciation,
the chapel of which he crowned with the capital of a king’s tomb wh ch he
transported to its place by means of elephants. I t was of wood, and skilfully
worked. In these works, he availed himself of the services of a people of the town
called Ambarages (dmba-raja) which signifies, slaves of the king, as m truth they
were Of these the king of Malacca had 3000, and to these when he employed them,
he give daily rations, and when he did not, they earned wages for themselves, their
wives and children.” Decade 2d, book vi. chap. vi. , _ ,,
The town of Malacca is distant from the nearest shore of Sumatra about 45 miles.
The port is but an open road, but notwithstanding safe at all seasons, not being within
the latitude of hurricanes, nor within the influence of either monsoon ,* or as the
Commentaries of Alboquerque express it, “ It is the beginning of one monsoon and
the end of another.” In the roads there are two islets about a mile from the shore,
called by the Portuguese Ilha dePedras, andllhade Naos—Stone and Ship Island. It
was near these that Alboquerque with his armada cast anchor m 1511, and at which
also were wont to anchor the largest caraques of the Portuguese in five and six
fathoms’ water. This part of the roads is now accessible only to small craft,
owing to the growth of an extensive mud bank dry at low water, and the
anchorage of vessels of burthen is at the inconvenient distance of two miles from the
shore.
MALACCA STRAITS. This is the name given to the Channel which separates
the Malay Peninsula from the island of Sumatra, but the Malays have no name for
it for it is not consonant to their practice to give the appellation of strait (s&lat) to
so large a body of water, whatever its form. The Straits of Malacca form in fact
almost a land-locked sea, in which variable winds prevail, and in which the monsoons
are felt only for a few miles at both extremities. Their extreme length is about
500 miles, and their breadth varies from 40 up to 300. At their western end there
are many islands, chiefly towards the Malayan shore, half-a-dozen of which, including
Penang, are of considerable size. At the eastern end they are almost innumerable,
about a dozen of them, including Singapore, being large. The Straits of Malacca
form the usual channel through which is carried on all the intercourse of the
countries of Asia east and west of them. The dangers which impeded the navigation
in the middle of the passage from sand-banks, and at the eastern entrance from countless
islands, have of late years been obviated by the construction of two fine lighthouses
by the British Government. The first notice we have of these straits is by
Ludovico Barthema, a native of Bologna, who seems to have visited Malacca about
1503, or six years before the visit of Sequiera, and he would seem to have taken
them for a salt river. “ Opposite to that city (Malacca),” says he, “ there is a very
great river (Fiumara), than which we had never seen a larger. I t is named Gaza (?)
and appears to be about 15 miles broad.” Ramusio, vol. i., p. 166.
MALANG. The name of a district of the province of Surabaya, in Java. The
word in Javanese signifies across or athwart, and figuratively “ unlucky.” Malang
is a valley from 1000 to 1500 feet above the level of the sea, having to the east the
mountains of Tengar, Brama, and Sumiru, and to the west those of Kawi and Arjuna,
some of the highest of the island. I t is a fertile, populous, and beautiful country,
and is remarkable for containing some of the most extensive Hindu ruins of Java,
particularly those of Singasari.
MALAY. The word is correctly Malayu, in the language of the Malays themselves,
in Javanese, and indeed in all the languages of the Archipelago. A people of
the brown complexioned race, with lank hair, speaking the Malay language is found in
greater or lesser number all over the Archipelago, from Sumatra to New Guinea, and
from the Peninsula to Timur. I t is however only in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula,
and islands adjacent to its coasts, and in Borneo that they exist in large
numbers, and have a distinct independent nationality, for everywhere else they are
found only as settlers or sojourners among indigenous populations. In Sumatra
they are thought to possess about one-half the area of the island, including the whole
of the eastern coast, a part of the western, and some of the most fruitful parts of the
interior, their number being here estimated at about a million. With the exception
of a few wandering negritos, they form the entire population of the Malay Peninsula
and its adjacent islands, and their number here has been estimated at about a
quarter of a million. In Borneo they occupy nearly the whole sea-coast, without
penetrating far into the interior, which is inhabited by men of the same race, but