The Arabs, it is known, had in the ninth century, if not long previously, made themselves acquainted with these countries; and the Chinese, if we may trust the Javan annals, had visited Java at the same period. According to Kempfer, the _Maláyus_ in former times had by far the greatest trade in the Indies, and frequented, with their vessels, not only all the coasts of Asia, but even ventured to the shores of Africa, and particularly to the great island of Madagascar; "for," adds this author, "John de Barros in his Decades, and Flaccourt in his History of Madagascar, assures us, that the language spoken by the inhabitants of that large African island is full of Javan and Malayan words: subsisting proofs of the commerce with these two nations, about two thousand years ago the richest and most powerful of Asia, had carried on with Madagascar, where they had settled in great numbers." Whatever credit we may attach to these statements and inferences, respecting the commerce of these islands before they were visited by Europeans in the fifteenth century, it is certain that, at this period, an extensive trade was established at Malacca, Acheen, and Bantam, then the great emporiums of the Eastern Archipelago. Hither the rich produce of Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas, was conveyed in the small trading craft of the country, and exchanged for the produce of India and China. These ports were then filled with vessels from every maritime state of Asia, from the Red Sea to Japan. The Portuguese, who preceded the Dutch in India, and who had fixed upon _Goa_, on the coast of Malabar, as the capital of their eastern settlements, selected Malacca as the most convenient station for conducting and protecting their trade with the islands, and erected it into a secondary capital. The Dutch finding this desirable station pre-occupied, and being foiled in their attempts to dislodge their rivals, first established a commercial settlement at Bantam, and subsequently subdued by force of arms the neighbouring province of _Jákatra_, (or _Jokárta_), on which, as will be afterwards mentioned, they built the fortress, the city, and the port of Batavia.