SUMATRA 155 



of the centre of the island remains yet unexplored, and in 

 the nortli the Dutch have for more than twenty years 

 been vainly endeavouring to subdue Ache (Atjeh or 

 Acheen), of the interior of which little or nothing is 

 Icnown. While Java is throughout its whole extent 

 brought under the influence of civilisation, and covered 

 with a network of roads and railways, Sumatra still re- 

 mains to all intents and purposes a wild and savage land ; 

 the only parts at all well known and settled by the 

 Dutch being the district lying between Palembang and 

 Benkulen, the country around Padang and Deli, and the 

 Lampongs. In this respect European civilisation has 

 but followed in the footsteps of Hindu influence. We 

 have seen Java to be everywhere strewn with the ruins of 

 innumerable temples of the Indian cults, except perhaps 

 in the Sunda lands, but here in Sumatra such remains 

 are not nearly so common, and are of no architectural 

 importance. The marked inferiority and lack of progress 

 in Sumatra is not very easily explained ; it is certainly 

 not to be entirely accounted for by any peculiar advan- 

 tages of Javanese soil. 



2. History. 



The first account which we have of Sumatra is that of 

 Marco Polo, who states that he was delayed five months 

 in one of its ports by the S.W. monsoon during his pass- 

 age through the archipelago in 1291. He calls it Java 

 Minor, and claims to have visited six out of the eight 

 kingdoms into which it was said to be at that time 

 divided, but much of the story is obviously fictional. 

 Ludovic Varthema is the next European we know cer- 

 tainly to have visited it, but not until more than 200 



