when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man’s kin, and eat him.  And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man’s soul.  And so they eat him up stump and rump.  And when they have thus eaten him they collect his bones and put them in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns among the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them.  And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway.  It is a very evil custom and a parlous.[NOTE 5]

Now that I have told you about this kingdom let us leave it, and I will tell you of Lambri.

NOTE 1.—­I have little doubt that in Marco’s dictation the name was really Samatra, and it is possible that we have a trace of this in the Samarcha (for Samartha) of the Crusca MS.

The Shijarat Malayu has a legend, with a fictitious etymology, of the foundation of the city and kingdom of Samudra, or SUMATRA, by Marah Silu, a fisherman near Pasangan, who had acquired great wealth, as wealth is got in fairy tales.  The name is probably the Sanskrit Samudra, “the sea.”  Possibly it may have been imitated from Dwara Samudra, at that time a great state and city of Southern India. [We read in the Malay Annals, Salalat al Salatin, translated by Mr. J.T.  Thomson (Proc.R.G.S. XX. p. 216):  “Mara Silu ascended the eminence, when he saw an ant as big as a cat; so he caught it, and ate it, and on the place he erected his residence, which he named Samandara, which means Big Ant (Semut besar in Malay).”—­H.C.] Mara Silu having become King of Samudra was converted to Islam, and took the name of Malik-al-Salih.  He married the daughter of the King of Parlak, by whom he had two sons; and to have a principality for each he founded the city and kingdom of Pasei.  Thus we have Marco’s three first kingdoms, Ferlec, Basma, and Samara, connected together in a satisfactory manner in the Malayan story.  It goes on to relate the history of the two sons Al-Dhahir and Al-Mansur.  Another version is given in the history of Pasei already alluded to, with such differences as might be expected when the oral traditions of several centuries came to be written down.

Ibn Batuta, about 1346, on his way to China, spent fifteen days at the court of Samudra, which he calls Samathrah or Samuthrah.  The king whom he found there reigning was the Sultan Al-Malik Al-Dhahir, a most zealous Mussulman, surrounded by doctors of theology, and greatly addicted to religious discussions, as well as a great warrior and a powerful prince.  The city was 4 miles from its port, which