wide, through which there is land passage to the east coast of Sumatra. From or near the two sets of mountains three historically important rivers flow to the east-in India, the Krishna, the Godavari, and the Kaveri; in Sumatra, the Kampar, the Jambi, and the Palembang or Ayer Musi. Since the name Malaya first appears in Sumatra, and since Malay traditional history in the Sejarah Malayu starts in Sumatra, we must look to that island as the home of the name, and it is perfectly rational to derive it from Sanskrit malaya, Tamil malai. Indeed, no other derivation has ever been suggested.

Where, then, did the ancient Indians firist intrude into Sumatra? And from where did they come? The archaeology of South-East Asia has not yet emerged from the exploratory stage. If there is archaeological evidence for anything, so much the better; but, if there is not, reasoning ex silentio, always dangerous anywhere, is quite out of place where this region is concerned. On the other hand, reasoning a priori is both useful and essential, provided that it is not allowed to obsess the mind. Sumatra presents the most unusual characteristic that its centres of civilization and its most heavily populated districts are not upon the coast but lie inland, principally in highlands. This is the natural result of the physiography of the island. The east coast from Tanjongbalai southwards, in the words of Professor Dobby,¹⁹ is "a forest-covered swamp" and "an obstacle to settlement and approach from the east, sparsely inhabited and undeveloped, the largest and most continuous example of Southeast Asia equatorial swamp still beyond the control of human technology." Wet padi planting is confined to a few deltaic embayments on the Achin coast, and in the upper valleys of the Ayer Musi and the Batang Tari on the flanks of Korinchi "as vestiges of the prosperous principalities of the first millennium when Indian colonisation reached its peak."²⁰ The seaboard of the; east coast is flanked by low-lying swamps and swampy islands without landmarks, and only the regions of Palembang and Jambi have any ancient history. The former lies about fifty miles up the Ayer Musi and the latter about eighty-five miles up the Jambi River. The history of each begins in the seventh century A.D. By far the largest portion of the population are the Minangkabau, who are distributed from the middle of the island to the west coast; there is more intensive settlement in the Padang highlands than anywhere else; and there is fairly dense settlement in the Batak highlands.

The depictions which we possess of ancient commercial sailing vessels-Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Persian and Indian-show that

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¹⁹ Southeast Asia (London, 1950), pp. 198-99.

²⁰Ibid., pp. 210-11.