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lay occasioned by the awkwardness and timidity of the natives, ordered the animal to be shot in the head, and dressed by the men of his own party. The head, feet, and offal were left on shore; but the Malays would not touch an article of them, because, as it afterward appeared, the animal had been put to death by the ". faithful." On the following morning, Adam was indulged in his own way of managing this business. The animal was made fast, as the day previous, and much time was taken in getting the head in a right direction. The animal moved, and again he was seized, and his head carefully pointed towards Mecca, when it was deemed lawful to kill him. These superstitions being thus far complied with, there was no further scruple manifested in appropriating to themselves, with keen appetites, such parts as had been allotted to them.

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CHAPTER IX.

Sumatra, the Ophir of Solomon-Described by Marco Polo-Visited by the Arabs —Discovered by the Portuguese-Size and location-Face of the country— Mountains, rivers, lakes, &c.-Climate and temperature-Monsoons and other winds-Soil, minerals, metals, organic remains, &c.-Volcanoes and earthquakes Origin of the inhabitants-Several distinct races-Description of their persons, dress, and ornaments-Effects of climate on character-Illustrated by the Esquimaux, the Laplander, and the Arab-The useful arts in Sumatra-Villages, houses, furniture, and food-Productions of the animal kingdom-Manner of cultivating pepper, trees, spices, gums, &c.

THERE is, perhaps, on no part of the globe, a spot of equal dimensions and geographical importance, which is so little known to Americans as the Island of Sumatra; and yet this island was once the seat of a powerful empire, and here was held the court of one of the most wealthy monarchs of the east. On the northwestern extremity of the island is situated the capital of Acheen, at that time the great emporium of oriental commerce and riches; and here met the enterprising merchants of the then western world, to barter and traffic for the precious merchandise of the Indian Archipelago. Here the all-grasping Portuguese, whose conquests in the Indian Ocean had lent a terror to their name, were bravely met, and frequently repulsed by the powerful monarch of Acheen, and made to tremble in their turn. The Dutch followed the Portuguese, and fought hard for a monopoly in the valuable trade of the island. But from neither of these nations has the world ever derived much information of the interior of the island, or of its history. Even the English had traded nearly a century with its inhabitants, before any tolerably correct account of them had been published.

There is no positive evidence that Sumatra was known to the ancients; as the knowledge of the Roman geographers did not, probably, carry them beyond the island of Ceylon. The idea of Sumatra being the land of Ophir, whither Solomon sent his fleets for the precious metals, is too vague even for conjecture; and the mountain bearing the name on the island was doubtless given to

it by modern writers. In the original Hebrew, the word signifies ashes. It is generally supposed that the Arabians first discovered Sumatra, about the year 1173, and gave to it the name of Ramni. The writings of the great Venetian traveller, Marco Paulo, published in the year 1269, and so long looked upon as fabulous, do, nevertheless, bear many internal evidences of being descriptive of this island. It was the Portuguese, however, in their expedition to the east, under the command of Alphonso de Albuquerque, in the year 1510, who first gave to Sumatra its place upon the charts, and made its actual existence known to the rest of the world.

Sumatra, which is one of the largest islands on the globe, is the most westerly of that group called by geographers Sunda Islands. It is computed to be more than nine hundred miles in length, and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty in breadth. But though this island, as we have said, was known to the Arabian voyagers before the completion of the twelfth century, and has since that period been so much frequented by the Portuguese, Dutch, Eng

* Among other arguments which have been adduced in favour of Sumatra and Ophir being the same, we recollect the following:-In the days of Peleg, the sixth from Noah, "the earth was divided" between the patriarch's then numerous descendants. Among the divisions, it is written, speaking of the sons of Javan or Java, "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families in the nations." From this passage some writers infer, that the islands of Java and Sumatra might have fallen to the lot of "the sons of Javan." They say that Peleg's brother Jocktan had thirteen sons, one of whom he called Ophir, and another Havilah :-" and their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east." Whether this may be Mount Ophir, in Sumatra, is of course a mere matter of conjecture. The same sacred historian, in speaking of Havilah, adds—" where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone." It was to Ophir that King Solomon sent a navy, built expressly for that purpose, on the shores of the Red Sea, which is an estuary of the Indian Ocean. This navy was manned by Hiram's servants, "shipmen that had knowledge of the sea," who were accompanied by the servants of Solomon. "And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon." "And the navy also of Hiram that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug-trees and precious stones." But notwithstanding this navy was manned by "shipmen that had knowledge of the sea," the voyage to Ophir, wherever that country might be, occupied nearly three years :-" once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." Sumatra, it will be seen, abounds with valuable trees, gold, ivory, apes, and the argos pheasant, far exceeding the peacock in the beauty of its plumage.

lish, and latterly by our own countrymen; yet its breadth in particular has not been ascertained with that degree of accuracy, and in a sufficient number of places, to afford data from which the superficies of the island may be computed. As it is delineated on Blackford's chart of the China Sea, published in 1816, and which, he says, is "drawn from the best and latest authorities," its dimensions far exceed those above-mentioned; for its greatest breadth, as there represented, being from Indrapoor Point on its southwest coast, across to the mouth of Dancer river on its southeast side, covers more than two hundred and fifty miles, according to his scale of degrees; while its length, by the same computation, exceeds one thousand.

The general direction of this elongated and comparatively attenuated island, is from northwest to southeast, extending across the equator, which divides it into two nearly equal parts: its northwestern extremity, which is Acheen Head, being in latitude 5° 53′ north, and its southeastern extremity, which is Hog Point, bounding the Strait of Sunda, in latitude 5° 56' south. Acheen Head is in longitude 95° 34' east, and Hog Point in 105° 50' east. Thus it appears that the Island of Sumatra extends across more than eleven parallels of latitude, and more than ten meridians of longitude. Its central point, which is directly on the equator, and is that of its greatest breadth, is in longitude 102° east. QuallahBattoo is in latitude 3° 20' north, longitude 96° 30′ east.

The whole of the southwest coast of Sumatra is washed by the waters of the great Indian Ocean; the northwestern point of the island stretching into the Bay of Bengal. Its opposite or northeastern shore, or so much of it as lies in the northern hemisphere, forms one side of the Strait of Malacca, which separates the island from the Malay peninsula on the east; while that portion of the same coast which extends into the southern hemisphere, is washed by waters flowing through the Straits of Sabon, Lingin, and Banca. The Strait of Malacca, at its northern entrance, is about one hundred and fifty miles in width, but gradually contracts as it extends to the southeast, until the distance across, at its southern entrance, a little north of the equator, is less than forty miles. Two degrees south of the equator, on the northeast of Sumatra, is the Island of Banca, and the strait of the same name. This island was ceded to the British in the year 1812,

by the new Sultan of Palembang, and was then called the Duke of York's Island; the tin of which has long been a source of much profit in the Japan market. The Malay peninsula, being the extreme southeast point of the Birman empire and of continental Asia, is the western boundary of the Gulf of Siam, east and north of which is the China Sea.

The face of the country is very unequal, broken, and irregular; and along its western coast, within twenty or thirty miles of the shore, a chain of lofty mountains stretches from one end of the island to the other, like the cordilleras of the South American Andes. This chain is in some places separated into parallel ridges, and though not sufficiently elevated to be covered with. indissoluble snow, often shoots up into aspiring volcanic cones, whose craters are continually breathing clouds of smoke, and at times vomit forth rivers of burning and consuming lava. Mount Ophir, situated immediately under the equator, is the highest on the island, and has been ascertained, by actual measurement, to be thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-two feet above the level of the sea, which is about two thirds the height which is ascribed to the most elevated of the Andes, and somewhat exceeding the Peak of Teneriffe.

Between these ridges and mountains are many extensive and rich plains, so far elevated above the low lands of the coast as to give them a comparatively fine, cool, and healthy climate. These plains are esteemed the most eligible portions of the country, and are by far the best improved and most thickly inhabited. Many extensive and beautiful lakes are reported by the natives to exist in the interior of these extensive plains, which serve greatly to facilitate their intercourse with each other. We say, "reported to exist;" for even at this day but little is known of the interior of the island, from the actual observations of foreigners. These lakes doubtless form the sources of the numerous rivers of the island, particularly those which discharge themselves into the straits on the eastern coast, and which are larger than those on the west side of the mountains, in proportion to the more extensive range of country through which they flow. Of these, Palembang, Jambi, Indergeree, Bakan and Battoo, Barra or Barroo, are the largest, rising on the east of the mountains, and receiving in their course the waters of many tributary streams and subsidiary rivu