The history of the Malay Archipelago during the last 600 years furnishes us with one of the most interesting chapters in the story of the spread of Islam by missionary efforts. During the whole of this period we find evidences of a continuous activity on the part of the Muhammadan missionaries, in one or other at least of the East India islands. In every instance, in the beginning, their work had to be carried on without any patronage or assistance from the rulers of the country, but solely by the force of persuasion, and in many cases in the face of severe opposition, especially on the part of the Spaniards. But in spite of all difficulties, and with varying success, they have prosecuted their efforts with untiring energy, perfecting their work (more especially in the present day) wherever it has been partial or insufficient. It is impossible to fix the precise date of the first introduction of Islam into the Malay Archipelago. It may have been carried thither by the Arab traders in the early centuries of the Hijrah, long before we have any historical notices of such influences being at work. This supposition is rendered the more probable by the knowledge we have of the extensive commerce with the East carried on by the Arabs from very early times. In the second century B.C. the trade with Ceylon was wholly in their hands. At the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, the trade with China, through Ceylon, received a great impulse, so that in the middle of the eighth century Arab traders were to be found in great numbers in Canton; while from the tenth to the fifteenth century, until the arrival of the Portuguese, they were undisputed masters of the trade with the East. [1181] We may therefore conjecture with tolerable certainty that they must have established their commercial settlements on some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, as they did elsewhere, at a very early period: though no mention is made of these islands in the works of the Arab geographers earlier than the ninth century, [1182] yet in the Chinese annals, under the date A.D. 674, an account is given of an Arab chief, who from later notices is conjectured to have been the head of an Arab settlement on the west coast of Sumatra. [1183]