The History of Sumatra | Page 9

latter I think the more probable.
Reland, an able oriental scholar, who directed his attention to the
languages of the islands, says it obtains its appellation from a certain
high land called Samadra, which he supposes to signify in the language
of the country a large ant; but in fact there is not any spot so named;
and although there is some resemblance between semut, the word for
an ant, and the name in question, the etymology is quite fanciful.
Others have imagined that they find an easy derivation in the word
samatra, to be met with in some Spanish or Portuguese dictionaries, as
signifying a sudden storm of wind and rain, and from whence our
seamen may have borrowed the expression; but it is evident that the
order of derivation is here reversed, and that the phrase is taken from
the name of the land in the neighbourhood of which such squalls
prevail. In a Persian work of the year 1611 the name of Shamatrah
occurs as one of those places where the Portuguese had established
themselves; and in some very modern Malayan correspondence I find
the word Samantara employed (along with another more usual, which
will be hereafter mentioned) to designate this island.
PROBABLY DERIVED FROM THE SANSKRIT.
These, it is true, are not entirely free from the suspicion of having
found their way to the Persians and Malays through the medium of

European intercourse; but to a person who is conversant with the
languages of the continent of India it must be obvious that the name,
however written, bears a strong resemblance to words in the Sanskrit
language: nor should this appear extraordinary when we consider (what
is now fully admitted) that a large proportion of the Malayan is derived
from that source, and that the names of many places in this and the
neighbouring countries (such as Indrapura and Indragiri in Sumatra,
Singapura at the extremity of the peninsula, and Sukapura and the
mountain of Maha-meru in Java) are indisputably of Hindu origin. It is
not my intention however to assign a precise etymology; but in order to
show the general analogy to known Sanskrit terms it may be allowed to
instance Samuder, the ancient name of the capital of the Carnatik,
afterwards called Bider; Samudra-duta, which occurs in the Hetopadesa,
as signifying the ambassador of the sea; the compound formed of su,
good, and matra, measure; and more especially the word samantara,
which implying a boundary, intermediate, or what lies between, might
be thought to apply to the peculiar situation of an island intermediate
between two oceans and two straits.
NOT ENTIRELY UNKNOWN TO THE NATIVES.
When on a former occasion it was asserted (and with too much
confidence) that the name of Sumatra is unknown to the natives, who
are ignorant of its being an island, and have no general name for it, the
expression ought to have been confined to those natives with whom I
had an opportunity of conversing, in the southern part of the west coast,
where much genuineness of manners prevails, with little of the spirit of
commercial enterprise or communication with other countries. But
even in situations more favourable for acquiring knowledge I believe it
will be found that the inhabitants of very large islands, and especially if
surrounded by smaller ones, are accustomed to consider their own as
terra firma, and to look to no other geographical distinction than that of
the district or nation to which they belong. Accordingly we find that the
more general names have commonly been given by foreigners, and, as
the Arabians chose to call this island Al-rami or Lameri, so the Hindus
appear to have named it Sumatra or Samantara.

MALAYAN NAMES FOR THE ISLAND.
Since that period however, having become much better acquainted with
Malayan literature, and perused the writings of various parts of the
peninsula and islands where the language is spoken and cultivated, I am
enabled to say that Sumatra is well known amongst the eastern people
and the better-informed of the natives themselves by the two names of
Indalas and Pulo percha (or in the southern dialect Pritcho).
INDALAS.
Of the meaning or analogies of the former, which seems to have been
applied to it chiefly by the neighbouring people of Java, I have not any
conjecture, and only observe its resemblance (doubtless accidental) to
the Arabian denomination of Spain or Andalusia. In one passage I find
the Straits of Malacca termed the sea of Indalas, over which, we are
gravely told, a bridge was thrown by Alexander the Great.
PERCHA.
The latter and more common name is from a Malayan word signifying
fragments or tatters, and the application is whimsically explained by
the condition of the sails of the vessel in which the island was
circumnavigated for the first