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 he could rely—and this would tend to prove that the sea-route to China via the Straits of Malacca, even though it was not yet in general use, was no longer unknown to the mariners of the East. We know that less. than a century later the sailor Alexander, from whom Marinus of Tyre derived the knowledge subsequently utilised by Ptolemy, had himself sailed to the Malay Peninsula and beyond, and it may safely be concluded. that the feasibility of this southeastern passage had become known to the seafarers of China long before an adventurer from the West was enabled to test the fact of its existence through the means of an actual voyage.

Ptolemy's views concerning the geography of south-eastern Asia, derived mainly from the works of his predecessor Marinus of Tyre, may best be appreciated by a glance at the map here reproduced from Mr. Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography. His primary misconception of the Indian Ocean as another and vaster Mediterranean was responsible for many of his geographical distortions, yet if this preconceived notion, and the bias which it imparted to his ideas, be borne in mind, it will be found that there is good reason to believe that the information supplied to him was derived originally from a man who had first-hand knowledge of the sea-route to China. Marinus had quoted the sailor Alexander as journeying from the Golden Chersonese along a coastline which "faced south"—that is to say, ran from west to east,—for a period of twenty days, until a port called Zabæ was reached. From this point, he declared, ships