[618] Chienchii are probably the people of Chincheo (Chinchew; the modern Chwan-Chow-Foo), a name formerly often applied to a province of China. See VOL. III, p. 41, note 6.
[619] Bellemo, basing his assertion on the fact that the Peguans proper are called Mon, says (Mosto, p. 110, note 6) that Burmah is here referred to. It would seem rather to be one of the northern districts of China, possibly about the Yellow River, and Lechii may refer to the city of Linching. Mosto and Amoretti transcribe Moni, and MS. 5,650, Mon.
[620] Cathay, at first restricted to the northern part of the country now called China, became later (in the Middle Ages) the name for the entire country. See Yule’s Cathay, i, preliminary essay.
[621] MS. 5,650 reads: “Hau.” Han was a small Chinese state which gave name to the first national Chinese dynasty, and it may be the Han referred to by Pigafetta. See Boulger’s Short History of China, p. 10.
[622] “Chetissirimiga” in MS. 5,650.
[623] “Triagomba” in MS. 5,650.
[624] These names appear before (see VOL. XXXIII, p. 321, note 177) where they are given as the name of one island.
[625] Javanese for “South Sea.”
[626] Sumatra, a name probably of Sanskrit origin, is first mentioned with that spelling by Varthema, but it had been visited previously by Marco Polo (who calls it Java the less); and probably by Nicolò de Conti, who calls it Sciumathera, and before him by the Arabian traveler Ibn Batûta (ca., 1330), who calls its capital Shumatrah or Sumatrah. Taprobane was the ancient name of Ceylon, not Sumatra. It is the most western of all the East India Archipelago, and next to Borneo and New Guinea the largest island proper, being about 1,000 miles long and having an area of about 128,560 square miles. The ancestral home of the Malay race was in the interior of Sumatra, in the region of Menangkaba, whence they colonized the coasts of Sumatra and spread to outlying islands. A number of tongues akin to the Malay and many dialects are spoken in the island. Neither the English nor the Dutch obtained any real foothold in the island until after 1816, since when the latter have entered upon a system of conquest. See Crawfurd’s Dictionary, Varthema’s Travels (Hakluyt Society edition); Cust’s Modern Languages; and Lucas’s Historical Geography British Colonies, i, pp. 98, 99, 101.
[627] Eden (p. 261) reads: “Fearyng leaſt if they ſhuld ſayle toward the firm land, they myght bee ſeene of the portugales who are of great power in Malaccha.”