Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra33341900roya).pdf/301

 Inscriptions in St. Paul's Church, Malacca.

The inscriptions on the tomb-stones in the old church of St. Paul at Malacca are of considerable antiquity, the dates ranging from A.D. 1568 to the early part of the eighteenth century, and are of no little interest to the student of the past history of the Settlement.

In some cases, the lettering of the inscriptions and the outlines of the coats of arms are as fresh and sharply-defined to-day as they were on the day when they were first cut. In other cases, on the contrary, the inscriptions are either entirely illegible, or can only be deciphered with difficulty. I therefore seized the opportunity afforded by a temporary residence in Malacca to make copies of all the inscriptions which are still legible, with a view to placing them on record in the journal of the Society, before time and the action of the weather have wrought any further havoc among them.

Curiously enough. while I was engaged in this work, the Acting Col. Chaplain (Mr. J. Hardy) discovered among the old Dutch records a list of the inscriptions on the tomb-stones made in 1713 by one Michiel de Bruyn, the Sexton, which was of considerable use to me in deciphering some of the more illegible inscriptions. The list is not complete, however, as the worthy Sexton left the Portuguese inscriptions and some of the Dutch ones, which are difficult to decipher, severely alone. A translation of the document is annexed (C).

I have drawn up a list of the inscriptions in brief (A), giving the names and the dates of birth and death, and I also give the inscriptions in full (B), with a translation of each in parallel columns. I further had a plan of the church made, showing the positions of the different stones, which are marked with numbers corresponding to those in the list of inscriptions.