1498.—"Melequa ... is 40 days from Qualecut with a fair wind ... hence proceeds all the clove, and it is worth there 9 crusados for a [bahar] (q.v.), and likewise nutmeg other 9 crusados the bahar; and there is much porcelain and much silk, and much tin, of which they make money, but the money is of large size and little value, so that it takes 3 farazalas (see [Frazala]) of it to make a crusado. Here too are many large parrots all red like fire."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 110-111.
1510.—"When we had arrived at the city of Melacha, we were immediately presented to the Sultan, who is a Moor ... I believe that more ships arrive here than in any other place in the world...."—Varthema, 224.
1511.—"This Paremiçura gave the name of Malaca to the new colony, because in the language of Java, when a man of Palimbão flees away they call him Malayo.... Others say that it was called Malaca because of the number of people who came there from one part and the other in so short a space of time, for the word Malaca also signifies to meet.... Of these two opinions let each one accept that which he thinks to be the best, for this is the truth of the matter."—Commentaries of Alboquerque, E.T. by Birch, iii. 76-77.
1516.—"The said Kingdom of Ansyane (see [Siam]) throws out a great point of land into the sea, which makes there a cape, where the sea returns again towards China to the north; in this promontory is a small kingdom in which there is a large city called Malaca."—Barbosa, 191.
1553.—"A son of Paramisora called Xaquem Darxa, (i.e. Sikandar Shāh) ... to form the town of Malaca, to which he gave that name in memory of the banishment of his father, because in his vernacular tongue (Javanese) this was as much as to say 'banished,' and hence the people are called Malaios."—De Barros, II. vi. 1.
" "That which he (Alboquerque) regretted most of all that was lost on that vessel, was two lions cast in iron, a first-rate work, and most natural, which the King of China had sent to the King of Malaca, and which King Mahamed had kept, as an honourable possession, at the gate of his Palace, whence Affonso Alboquerque carried them off, as the principal item of his triumph on the capture of the city."—Ibid. II. vii. 1.
1572.—
"Nem tu menos fugir poderás deste
Postoque rica, e postoque assentada
Là no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste,