Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/346

 302 ANCIENT HISTORY OF JAVA. theliistory of Java that at Falembang, in Sumatra, was established the Javanese colony, which to this day speak the language of Java, and exhibit the peculiar manners, customs, and forms of government of that coun try; and it was by the same princes, though Javan- ese story or tradition be wholly silent on the subject, that the Malayan state at SinghapurawsLS subverted.* The ruins of the city of Mojopahit are still visible in the district of Wirosobo, and both from the extent of the area which they occupy, not less than several square miles, and the beauty of some of the relics of architecture, we are inclined to form a respect- able opinion of the power of this native state, esti- mating it by a just standard, and rejecting those exaggerations which the imagination is prone to induljxe with rejxard to all that is involved in the mystery of antiquity. We must not forget, how- ever, that much of the celebrity which it enjoys, in the legends of other countries of the Archipe- lago, was probably owing to the missionaries of Islam, who disseminated and exaggerated the fame of a conquest they had themselves made. er, is an affair of higher importance in the history of the for- mer than in that of the latter, and more likely to be preserv- ed in their records or traditions. In investigations of this nature, this circuni stance ought to be k< pt in remembrance. I think it a supposition not improbable, that Mojopahit is ignorantly applied by the Malays to all the eastern poition of qncient Java, and to every period of its ancient history.
 * The invaMon of the territory cf a smaller tribe by a great-