VIII., pp. 280-3.

OF THE ISLAND CALLED PENTAM, AND THE CITY MALAIUR.

The late Col.  G.E.  Gerini published in the J.R.A.S., July, 1905, pp. 485-511, a paper on the Nagarakretagama, a Javanese poem composed by a native bard named Prapanca, in honour of his sovereign Hayam Wuruk (1350-1389), the greatest ruler of Majapahit.  He upsets all the theories accepted hitherto regarding Panten.  The southernmost portion of the Malay Peninsula is known as the Malaya or Malayu country (Tanah-Malayu) = Chinese Ma-li-yue-erh = Malayur = Maluir of Marco Polo, witness the river Malayu (Sungei Malayu) still so called, and the village Bentan, both lying there (ignored by all Col.  Gerini’s predecessors) on the northern shore of the Old Singapore Strait.  Col.  Gerini writes (p. 509):  “There exists to this day a village Bentam on the mainland side of Singapore Strait, right opposite the mouth of the Sungei Selitar, on the northern shore of Singapore Island, it is not likely that both travellers [Polo and Odoric] mistook the coast of the Malay Peninsula for an island.  The island of Pentam, Paten, or Pantem must therefore be the Be-Tumah (Island) of the Arab Navigators, the Tamasak Island of the Malays; and, in short, the Singapore Island of our day.”  He adds:  “The island of Pentam cannot be either Batang or Bitang, the latter of which is likewise mentioned by Marco Polo under the same name of Pentam, but 60 + 30 = 90 miles before reaching the former.  Batang, girt all round by dangerous reefs, is inaccessible except to small boats.  So is Bintang, with the exception of its south-western side, where is now Riau, and where, a little further towards the north, was the settlement at which the chief of the island resided in the fourteenth century.  There was no reason for Marco Polo’s junk to take that roundabout way in order to call at such, doubtlessly insignificant place.  And the channel (i.e.  Rhio Strait) has far more than four paces’ depth of water, whereas there are no more than two fathoms at the western entrance to the Old Singapore Strait.”

Marco Polo says (II., p. 280):  “Throughout this distance [from Pentam] there is but four paces’ depth of water, so that great ships in passing this channel have to lift their rudders, for they draw nearly as much water as that.”  Gerini remarks that it is unmistakably the Old Singapore Strait, and that there is no channel so shallow throughout all those parts except among reefs.  “The Old Strait or Selat Tebrau, says N.B.  Dennys, Descriptive Dict. of British Malaya, separating Singapore from Johore.  Before the settlement of the former, this was the only known route to China; it is generally about a mile broad, but in some parts little more than three furlongs.  Crawford went through it in a ship of 400 tons, and found the passage tedious but safe.”  Most of Sinologists, Beal, Chavannes, Pelliot, Bul.  Ecole Ext.  Orient., IV., 1904, pp. 321-2, 323-4, 332-3, 341, 347, place the Malaiur of Marco Polo at Palembang in Sumatra.