Page:A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation- Dissertation and Grammar, in Two Volumes, Vol. I (IA dli.granth.52714).pdf/26

 mud͘ik and ilir are two verbs, which mean respectively "to ascend" and "to descend a river," or "to go against" or "with the stream." The same words used as nouns mean the interior" and "the seaboard." Kuwala and muwara are two words which signify "the embouchure" or "mouth of a river," either at its disemboguement in the sea or its junction with another river. Anak-sungai meaus, literally, "child of the river;" tâluk is "a bight," or "cove," and rantau "a reach;" but all these words signify also "the district of a country," or "a settlement.' Sâbrang is a preposition, meaning across the water," and when used as a verb, "to cross the water." The Malay compass, pan- doman, is divided into sixteen points, with native names; and these names, for the purpose of navigation, have been adopted by some other tribes, as the Bugis, although retaining their own for ordinary occasions. The monsoons, or periodical winds, are distinguished by the Malays, and among the tribes of the Archipelago by them only, by native terms, which literally signify, for the westerly, atâs-angin, "above the wind," or "air," for it may mean either; and for the easterly, bawah-angin, "below the wind," or "air." For every part of a vessel and her equipment there is a specific native name; and, considering the simple structure of Malayan shipping, the phraseology is copious. Terms for the different modes of sailing are also numerous.

In one of the many Malay narratives purporting to be true history, but always containing more fable than truth, called the "History of the King of Malacca," the reigning prince is described as sending a mission to claim the assistance of the Turks against the Portuguese. As I shall afterwards have occasion to refer to this mission, I shall at present only observe, that the size of the vessels which made this distant voyage of seventy-three days' duration would probably average from fifty to a hundred tons each. Our own shipping that made the circumnavigation of the globe seventy years later, under Drake, did not, it should not be forgotten, even equal this burthen. Of Drake's five ships, the largest, the "Admiral," was but of a hundred tons, and the rest of eighty, fifty, thirty, and the smallest of no more than fifteen tons burthen.