homage was not kept. Gradually the Sung dynasty declined in power,
and East Indian potentates became less humble.

In the thirteenth and the early part of the fourteenth centuries
Bruni owed allegiance alternately to two powers much younger than
herself, Majapahit in Java, and Malacca on the west coast of the
Malay Peninsula. Both these states were founded in the thirteenth
century.[13] Majapahit, originally only one of several Javan kingdoms,
rapidly acquired strength and subjugated her neighbours and the nearest
portions of the islands around. Malacca, formed when the Malay colony
of Singapore was overwhelmed by Javanese, became the great commercial
depot of the Straits and the chief centre of Mohammedanism in the
Archipelago. The two powers therefore stood for two faiths and two
cultures: Majapahit for Brahminism and Hindu influence, Malacca for
Islam and the more practical civilisation of Arabia.

In the earliest years of the fourteenth century Bruni was a dependency
of Majapahit, but seems to have recovered its independence during the
minority of the Javan king. It is to this time that the tradition of
the Kapuas Malays ascribes the arrival of the Kayans in Borneo.[14]
Then Angka Wijaya extended the power of Majapahit over Palembang
in Sumatra, Timor, Ternate, Luzon, and the coasts of Borneo. Over
Banjermasin he set his natural son. In 1368 Javanese soldiers drove
from Bruni the Sulu marauders who had sacked the town. A few years
later the ungrateful king transferred his allegiance to China, and
not long afterwards, with calculating humility, paid tribute[15]
to Mansur Shah, who had succeeded to the throne of Malacca in 1374 A.D.

An extraordinary incident occurred at the beginning of the fifteenth
century, which again -- and for the last time -- draws our attention