The History of Sumatra | Page 8

passed over to Pedir in Sumatra, which he concludes to be Taprobane.
The productions of the island, he says, were chiefly exported to Catai
or China. From Sumatra he proceeded to Banda and the Moluccas,
from thence returned by Java and Malacca to the west of India, and
arrived at Lisbon in 1508.
ODOARDUS BARBOSA.
Odoardus Barbosa, of Lisbon, who concluded the journal of his voyage
in 1516, speaks with much precision of Sumatra. He enumerates many
places, both upon the coast and inland, by the names they now bear,
among which he considers Pedir as the principal, distinguishes between
the Mahometan inhabitants of the coast and the Pagans of the inland
country; and mentions the extensive trade carried on by the former with
Cambaia in the west of India.
ANTONIO PIGAFETTA.
In the account given by Antonio Pigafetta, the companion of Ferdinand
Magellan, of the famous circumnavigatory voyage performed by the
Spaniards in the years 1519 to 1522, it is stated that, from their
apprehension of falling in with Portuguese ships, they pursued their
westerly route from the island of Timor, by the Laut Kidol, or southern
ocean, leaving on their right hand the island of Zamatra (written in
another part of the journal, Somatra) or Taprobana of the ancients.
Mention is also made of a native of that island being on board, who
served them usefully as an interpreter in many of the places they visited;
and we are here furnished with the earliest specimen of the Malayan
language.
PORTUGUESE EXPEDITIONS.
Previously however to this Spanish navigation of the Indian seas, by
the way of South America, the expeditions of the Portuguese round the
Cape of Good Hope had rendered the island well known, both in regard

to its local circumstances and the manners of its inhabitants.
EMANUEL KING OF PORTUGAL.
In a letter from Emanuel King of Portugal to Pope Leo the Tenth, dated
in 1513, he speaks of the discovery of Zamatra by his subjects; and the
writings of Juan de Barros, Castaneda, Osorius, and Maffaeus, detail
the operations of Diogo Lopez de Sequeira at Pedir and Pase in 1509,
and those of the great Alfonso de Alboquerque at the same places, in
1511, immediately before his attack upon Malacca. Debarros also
enumerates the names of twenty of the principal places of the island
with considerable precision, and observes that the peninsula or
chersonesus had the epithet of aurea given to it on account of the
abundance of gold carried thither from Monancabo and Barros,
countries in the island of C(cedilla)amatra.
Having thus noticed what has been written by persons who actually
visited this part of India at an early period, or published from their oral
communication by contemporaries, it will not be thought necessary to
multiply authorities by quoting the works of subsequent commentators
and geographers, who must have formed their judgments from the same
original materials.
NAME OF SUMATRA.
With respect to the name of Sumatra, we perceive that it was unknown
both to the Arabian travellers and to Marco Polo, who indeed was not
likely to acquire it from the savage natives with whom he had
intercourse. The appellation of Java minor which he gives to the island
seems to have been quite arbitrary, and not grounded upon any
authority, European or Oriental, unless we can suppose that he had
determined it to be the I'azadith nesos of Ptolemy; but from the other
parts of his relation it does not appear that he was acquainted with the
work of that great geographer, nor could he have used it with any
practical advantage. At all events it could not have led him to the
distinction of a greater and a lesser Java; and we may rather conclude
that, having visited (or heard of) the great island properly so called, and
not being able to learn the real name of another, which from its

situation and size might well be regarded as a sister island, he applied
the same to both, with the relative epithets of major and minor. That
Ptolemy's Jaba-dib or dio was intended, however vaguely, for the island
of Java, cannot be doubted. It must have been known to the Arabian
merchants, and he was indefatigable in his inquiries; but at the same
time that they communicated the name they might be ill qualified to
describe its geographical position.
In the rude narrative of Odoricus we perceive the first approach to the
modern name in the word Sumoltra. Those who immediately followed
him write it with a slight, and often inconsistent, variation in the
orthography, Sumotra, Samotra, Zamatra, and Sumatra. But none of
these travellers inform us from whom they learned it; whether from the
natives or from persons who had been in the habits of frequenting it
from the continent of India; which