The History of Sumatra | Page 7

a branch and
applying to it a vessel which is filled in the course of a day and night. A
description is then given of the Indian or coconut. Dragoian, a name
bearing some though not much resemblance to Indragiri on the eastern
coast; but I doubt his having proceeded so far to the southward as that

river. The customs of the natives are painted as still more atrocious in
this district. When any of them are afflicted with disorders pronounced
by their magicians to be incurable their relations cause them to be
suffocated, and then dress and eat their flesh; justifying the practice by
this argument, that if it were suffered to corrupt and breed worms, these
must presently perish, and by their deaths subject the soul of the
deceased to great torments. They also kill and devour such strangers
caught amongst them as cannot pay a ransom. Lambri might be
presumed a corruption of Jambi, but the circumstances related do not
justify the analogy. It is said to produce camphor, which is not found to
the southward of the equinoctial line; and also verzino, or red-wood
(though I suspect benzuin to be the word intended), together with a
plant which he names birci, supposed to be the bakam of the Arabs, or
sappan wood of the eastern islands, the seeds of which he carried with
him to Venice. In the mountainous parts were men with tails a palm
long; also the rhinoceros, and other wild animals. Lastly, Fanfur or
Fansur, which corresponds better to Campar than to the island of
Panchur, which some have supposed it. Here the finest camphor was
produced, equal in value to its weight in gold. The inhabitants live on
rice and draw liquor from certain trees in the manner before described.
There are likewise trees that yield a species of meal. They are of a large
size, have a thin bark, under which is a hard wood about three inches in
thickness, and within this the pith, from which, by means of steeping
and straining it, the meal (or sago) is procured, of which he had often
eaten with satisfaction. Each of these kingdoms is said to have had its
peculiar language. Departing from Lambri, and steering northward
from Java minor one hundred and fifty miles, they reached a small
island named Necuram or Norcueran (probably Nancowry, one of the
Nicobars), and afterwards an island named Angaman (Andaman), from
whence, steering to the southward of west a thousand miles, they
arrived at that of Zeilan or Seilam, one of the most considerable in the
world. The editions consulted are chiefly the Italian of Ramusio, 1583,
Latin of Muller, 1671, and French of Bergeron, 1735, varying much
from each other in the orthography of proper names.
ODORICUS.

Odoricus, a friar, who commenced his travels in 1318 and died at
Padua in 1331, had visited many parts of the East. From the southern
part of the coast of Coromandel he proceeded by a navigation of twenty
days to a country named Lamori (perhaps a corruption of the Arabian
Al-rami), to the southward of which is another kingdom named
Sumoltra, and not far from thence a large island named Java. His
account, which was delivered orally to the person by whom it was
written down, is extremely meagre and unsatisfactory.
MANDEVILLE.
Mandeville, who travelled in the fourteenth century, seems to have
adopted the account of Odoricus when he says, "Beside the isle of
Lemery is another that is clept Sumobor; and fast beside a great isle
clept Java."
NICOLO DI CONTI.
Nicolo di Conti, of Venice, returned from his oriental travels in 1449
and communicated to the secretary of Pope Eugenius IV a much more
consistent and satisfactory account of what he had seen than any of his
predecessors. After giving a description of the cinnamon and other
productions of Zeilam he says he sailed to a great island named
Sumatra, called by the ancients Taprobana, where he was detained one
year. His account of the pepper-plant, of the durian fruit, and of the
extraordinary customs, now well ascertained, of the Batech or Batta
people, prove him to have been an intelligent observer.
ITINERARIUM PORTUGALLENSIUM.
A small work entitled Itinerarium Portugallensium, printed at Milan in
1508, after speaking of the island of Sayla, says that to the eastward of
this there is another called Samotra, which we name Taprobane, distant
from the city of Calechut about three months' voyage. The information
appears to have been obtained from an Indian of Cranganore, on the
coast of Malabar, who visited Lisbon in 1501.
LUDOVICO BARTHEMA.

Ludovico Barthema (Vartoma) of Bologna, began his travels in 1503,
and in 1505, after visiting Malacca, which he describes as being the
resort of a greater quantity of shipping than any other port in the world,