The History of Sumatra | Page 5

has the advantage of an
observatory.
MAP.
By the general use of chronometers in latter times the means have been
afforded of determining the positions of many prominent points both on
the eastern and western coasts, by which the map of the island has been
considerably improved: but particular surveys, such as those of the
bays and islets from Batang-kapas to Padang, made with great ability
by Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) John Macdonald; of the coast
from Priaman to the islands off Achin by Captain George Robertson;

and of Siak River by Mr. Francis Lynch, are much wanted; and the
interior of the country is still very imperfectly known. From sketches of
the routes of Mr. Charles Campbell and of Lieutenant Hastings Dare I
have been enabled to delineate the principal features of the Sarampei,
Sungei Tenang and Korinchi countries, inland of Ipu, Moco-moco, and
Indrapura; and advantage has been taken of all other information that
could be procured. For the general materials from which the map is
constructed I am chiefly indebted to the kindness of my friend, the late
Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, whose indefatigable labours during a long
life have contributed more than those of any other person to the
improvement of Indian Hydrography. It may be proper to observe that
the map of Sumatra to be found in the fifth volume of Valentyn's great
work is so extremely incorrect, even in regard to those parts
immediately subject to the Dutch government, as to be quite useless.
UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. TAPROBANE.
Notwithstanding the obvious situation of this island in the direct track
from the ports of India to the Spice Islands and to China, it seems to
have been unknown to the Greek and Roman geographers, whose
information or conjectures carried them no farther than Selan-dib or
Ceylon, which has claims to be considered as their Taprobane;
although during the middle ages that celebrated name was almost
uniformly applied to Sumatra. The single circumstance indeed of the
latter being intersected by the equator (as Taprobane was said to be) is
sufficient to justify the doubts of those who were disinclined to apply it
to the former; and whether in fact the obscure and contradictory
descriptions given by Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Ptolemy,
belonged to any actual place, however imperfectly known; or whether,
observing that a number of rare and valuable commodities were
brought from an island or islands in the supposed extremity of the East,
they might have been led to give place in their charts to one of vast
extent, which should stand as the representative of the whole, is a
question not to be hastily decided.
OPHIR.
The idea of Sumatra being the country of Ophir, whither Solomon sent

his fleets for cargoes of gold and ivory, rather than to the coast of
Sofala, or other part of Africa, is too vague, and the subject wrapped in
a veil of too remote antiquity, to allow of satisfactory discussion; and I
shall only observe that no inference can be drawn from the name of
Ophir found in maps as belonging to a mountain in this island and to
another in the peninsula; these having been applied to them by
European navigators, and the word being unknown to the natives.
Until the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope
the identity of this island as described or alluded to by writers is often
equivocal, or to be inferred only from corresponding circumstances.
ARABIAN TRAVELLERS.
The first of the two Arabian travellers of the ninth century, the account
of whose voyages to India and China was translated by Renaudot from
a manuscript written about the year 1173, speaks of a large island
called Ramni, in the track between Sarandib and Sin (or China), that
from the similarity of productions has been generally supposed to mean
Sumatra; and this probability is strengthened by a circumstance I
believe not hitherto noticed by commentators. It is said to divide the
Sea of Herkend, or Indian Ocean, from the Sea of Shelahet) Salahet in
Edrisi), and Salat being the Malayan term both for a strait in general,
and for the well-known passage within the island of Singapura in
particular, this may be fairly presumed to refer to the Straits of
Malacca.
EDRISI.
Edrisi, improperly called the Nubian geographer, who dedicated his
work to Roger, King of Sicily, in the middle of the twelfth century,
describes the same island, in the first climate, by the name of Al-Rami;
but the particulars so nearly correspond with those given by the
Arabian traveller as to show that the one account was borrowed from
the other. He very erroneously however makes the distance between
Sarandib and that island to be no more than three days' sail instead of
fifteen. The island of Soborma,