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DECEMBER, 1884.]
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CHAP. 2, $ 5.
373
with respect to rivers, &c., while at the same time Thakalai is the legendary name of the founder of Rangan Pagoda. There was, how. ever, he says, down to late mediæval times, a place of note in this quarter called Takkhala, Takola, or Tagala, the exact site of which he cannot trace, though it was apparently on the Martaban side of the Sitang estuary.
Mouth of the Khrysoa na River :--This must be the Eastern or Rangûn mouth of the Irawadi, for, as Yule states on the authority of Dr. F. Mason, Hmabi immediately north of Rangon was anciently called Suvarnanadi, i. e. Golden River,' and this is the meaning of Khrysoana.
Sabana:- This may be a somewhat distorted form of Suvarna, 'golden-coloured,' and the mart so called may have been situated near the mouth of the Saluen River. Yule therefore identifies it with Satung or Thatung. Lassen assigns it quite a different position, placing it in one of the small islands lying off the southern extremity of the Peninsula.
Cape Maleou Kolon-Regarding this Yule Bays, "Probably the Cape at Amherst. Mr. Crawford has noticed the singular circumstance that this name is pure Javanese, signifying "Western Malays." Whether the name Malay can be so old is a question; but I observe that in Bastian's Siamese Extracts, the foundation of Takkhala is ascribed to the Malays." Lassen places it much further south and on the eastern coast of the Peninsula, identifying it with Cape Romania (Ind. Alt., vol. III, p. 232).
Koli:-In the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. IV, p. 639 ff, Colonel Yule has thrown much light on Ptolemy's description of the coast from this place to Kat. tigara by comparing the glimpse which it gives us of the navigation to China in the 1st or 2nd century of our era with the accounts of the same navigation as made by the Arabs seven or eight centuries later. While allowing that it would be rash to dogmatize on the details of the trang. gangetic geography, he at the same time points out that the safest guide to the true interpretation of Ptolemy's data here lies in the probability that the nautical tradition was never lost. He calls attention also to the fact that the names on the route to the Sinae are many of them Indian, specifying as instances Sabana, Pagrasa, R. Sobanos, Tipôno bastê, Zaba, Tagora, Balonga, Sinda, Aganagara, Brama, Ambastas, Rabana, River Kottiaris, Kokkonagara, &c. At Kôli the
Greek and Arab routes first coincide, for, to quote his words, "I take this Kôli to be the Kalah of the Arabs, which was a month's sail from Kaulam (Quilon) in Malabar, and was a place dependent on the Maharaja of Zábaj (Java or the Great Islands) and near which were the mountains producing tin. Ko-lo is also mentioned in the Chinese history of the Tang dynasty in terms indicating its position somewhere in the region of Malaka. Kalah lay on the sea of Shalâhit (which we call Straits of Malaka), but was not very far from the entrance to the sea of Kadranj, a sea which embraced the Gulf of Siam, therefore I presume that Kalah was pretty far down the Malay Peninsula. It may, however, have been Kadah, or Quedda as we write it, for it was 10 days' voyage from Kalah to Tiyamah (Batumah, Koyumah). Now the Sea of Kadranj was entered, the Perimulic Gulf of Ptolemy."
Perimulic Gulf :-Pliny mentions an Indian promontory called Perimula where there were very productive pearl fisheries (lib. VI, c. 54), and where also was a very busy mart of commerce distant from Patala, 620 Roman miles (lib. VI, c. 20). Lassen, in utter disregard of Pliny's figures indicating its position to be somewhere near Bombay, placed it on the coast of the Island of Manar. In a note to my translation of the Indika of Megasthenes I sug. gested that Perimula may have been in the Island of Salsette. Mr. Campbell's subsequent identification of it however with Simylla (Tiamula) where there was both a cape and a great mart of trade I think preferable, and indeed quite satisfactory. But, it may be asked, how came it to pass that a place on the west coast of India should have the same name as another on the far distant Malay coast. It has been supposed by way of explanation that in very remote times & stream of emigration from the south-eastern shores of Asia flowed onward to India and other western countries, and that the names of places familiar to the emigrants in the homes they had left were given to their new settlements. There is evidence to show that such an emigration actually took place. Yule places the Malay Perimula at Pahang. The Perimulic Gulf is the Gulf of. Siam, called by the Arabs, as already stated, the Sea of Kadranj. Lassen takes it to be only an indentation of the Peninsular coast by the waters of this Gulf, which in common with most other writers ho identifies with Ptolemy's Great Galf.
» Dr. Forchammer in his paper on the First Buddhist Mission to Suvannabhumi, pp. 7, 16, identifies Takola with the Burman Kola or Kula-taik and the Talaing Toikkala, the ruins of which are still extant between
the present Ayetthima and Kinyua, now 12 miles from the sea-shore, though it was an important ses port till the 16th century.-J. B.
