Hood adopted by Mei-Li Qin.

The story of the origins of the kingdom of Melaka as related by the Sejarah Melayu (the Malay Annals) is as follows. Sang Nila Utama, who claimed to be a descendant of Raja Iskandar Zulkarnain (Alexander the Great), was anointed in Palembang, Sumatra. Eventually, he moved first to Bentan island and then to Temasek, where he founded the city of Singapura (Singapore). Subsequently his descendant Permaisura (prince consort), was attacked by the forces of Majapahit (from Java) and he had to flee north up the Malay peninsula.

With a small band of followers, Permaisura set out along the west coast of the Malay peninsula in search of a new refuge. The refugees settled first at Muar, Johor, but they were quickly driven away by a vast and implacable horde of monitor lizards; the second spot chosen seemed equally unfavorable, as the fortress that the refugees began to build fell to ruins immediately. Permaisura moved on.

Soon afterward, during a hunt near the mouth of a river called Bertam, he saw a white mouse-deer or pelanduk kick one of his hunting dogs. So impressed was he by the mouse-deer's brave gesture that he decided immediately to build a city on the spot. He asked one of his servants the name of the tree under which he was resting and, being informed that the tree was called a Malaka, gave that name to the city. The year was 1400 (give or take a few years...).

Although its origin is as much romance as history, the fact is that Permaisura's new city was situated at a point of tremendous strategic importance. Midway along the straits that linked China to India and the Near East, Melaka was perfectly positioned as a center for maritime trade. The city grew rapidly, and within fifty years it had become a wealthy and powerful hub of international commerce, with a population of over 50,000.

The Siamese had been battling the Malays over the control of the Straits of Malacca for a number of years and sought to capture Melaka to control the trading route. Their two attacks, one by land and the other by sea, were successfully repulsed.

Islam was soon introduced to the Melaka, arriving along with Muslim traders from western India. By the first decade of the sixteenth century Melaka was a bustling, cosmopolitan port, attracting hundreds of ships each year. The city was known worldwide as a center for the trade of silk and porcelain from China; textiles from Gujarat and Coromandel in India; camphor from Borneo; sandalwood from Timor; nutmeg, mace, and cloves from the Moluccas, gold and pepper from Sumatra; and tin from western Malay peninsula.

Melaka was now Southeast Asia's busiest port, receiving ships from the Middle East, India, China and Malay Archipelago. The ships of the Malay Archipelago were the most important in the long run, because they brought spices from the Moluccas islands, near New Guinea.

These islands, soon to be called "the Spice Islands" by Europeans, are the world's largest source of black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, mace and camphor. The demand for spices in the West was at an all-time high, because European and Middle Eastern diets at this time were terribly bland without them; moreover, they helped make spoiled meat tolerable, which made a difference in the era before refrigeration was invented.

Spices were also widely used as medicines, and merchants considered them to be the ideal cargo: a nonperishable commodity that can be worth a lot of money without taking up a lot of cargo space.

Unfortunately for Western Europe, the spices were brought west by a relay of merchants (Indonesians, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Arabs and finally Italians) and every time the cargo changed hands the price went up. A bag of cloves selling for three ducats (almost $150) in India could cost almost fifty times as much by the time it reached Venice. Obviously, whoever could get the spices without dealing with middlemen would make a huge profit, and the high price of spices prompted one of the countries farthest away, Portugal, to regard them in much the same way modern nations regard oil; the nation that controlled pepper could control the world!

The Portuguese under the command of Alfonso de Albuquerque soon arrived at Melaka, taking the city after a sustained bombardment in 1511. The ruler at that time, Sultan Mahmud fled to Johor, from whence the Malays counterattacked the Portuguese repeatedly though without success. One reason for the strength of the Portuguese defence was the construction of the massive fortification of A Famosa or Porta De Santiago. Only a small portion of it survives today.

Thus with the capture of city of Melaka by the Portuguese, the Malay kingdom of Melaka ended as well, to be replaced by the new kingdom of Johor further south. Never again would Melaka regained its days of glory.