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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 1284 of 1350
Words from 352304 to 352554
of 370046
