["It Is True," Sir Henry Yule Wrote Since (1882), "That Champa, As Known In
Later Days, Lay To The East Of The Mekong Delta, Whilst Zabai Of The Greeks
Lay To The West Of That And Of The [Greek:
Mega akrotaerion] - the Great
Cape, or C. Cambodia of our maps.
Crawford (Desc. Ind. Arch. p. 80) seems
to say that the Malays include under the name Champa the whole of what we
call Kamboja. This may possibly be a slip. But it is certain, as we shall
see presently, that the Arab Sanf - which is unquestionably Champa - also
lay west of the Cape, i.e. within the Gulf of Siam. The fact is that the
Indo-Chinese kingdoms have gone through unceasing and enormous
vicissitudes, and in early days Champa must have been extensive and
powerful, for in the travels of Hiuen Tsang (about A.D. 629) it is called
maha-Champa. And my late friend Lieutenant Garnier, who gave great
attention to these questions, has deduced from such data as exist in
Chinese Annals and elsewhere, that the ancient kingdom which the Chinese
describe under the name of Fu-nan, as extending over the whole peninsula
east of the Gulf of Siam, was a kingdom of the Tsiam or Champa race. The
locality of the ancient port of Zabai or Champa is probably to be sought on
the west coast of Kamboja, near the Campot, or the Kang-kao of our maps. On
this coast also was the Komar and Kamarah of Ibn Batuta and other Arab
writers, the great source of aloes-wood, the country then of the Khmer or
Kambojan People." (Notes on the Oldest Records of the Sea-Route to China
from Western Asia, Proc.R.G.S. 1882, pp.
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