At Hull there are two typescripts:

a) Romanized transliteration by P. Voorhoeve, of the Syair Perahu: a synoptic version, giving the texts of IOL Ms.A.2 (= DJA/2/150), and of SOAS Ms.41394B, 16ff., typescript (= L.Or.8447/117).

b) Romanized transliteration by P. Voorhoeve, of the Si burung pingai and Syair Perahu, from SOAS Ms.41394A-B (= L.Or.8447/116, part: see M.C. Ricklefs and P. Voorhoeve, 'Indonesian Manuscripts in Great Britain', OUP, London 1977, p.165).

The original is a bark folding book of 22 folds, 17.5 x 15.5 cm, written in the r ncong script in blank verse in South Sumatran Malay. From the Marsden Collection. See M.C. Ricklefs and P. Voorhoeve, op.cit., 1977, pp.123, 165. An extended discussion of these texts, including the SOAS manuscript, is given by P. Voorhoeve in 'VOHD', 28, pt.2, 1985, pp.47-52. See further: V. Y. Braginsky, 'Some remarks on the Syair Perahu by Hamzah Fansuri', 'Bijdragen KITLV', 131, pt.4, 1975, pp.407-26.

This version of the Si burung pingai is reckoned by Voorhoeve ('VOHD' 28, pt.2, p.47) to be a South Sumatran lament: the white bird is a name for the living spirit or soul of man. Syair Perahu is a mystical poem on life as compared with a ship at sea. Both of the texts in the present manuscript differ from the well-known poems of these names ascribed to Hamzah Fansuri. These versions are not in the new version of Hamzah's poems: G.W.J. Drewes and L.F. Brakel, 'The poems of Hamzah Fansuri' (Bibliotheca Indonesica 26), Foris Publications for KITLV, Dordrecht, 1986.