SUMATRA 211 



neighbourhood of the Singkara Lake, Fort van der 

 Capellen. 



Ache, known to the Dutch and natives as Kota Eaja, 

 hes some three miles from the port Olele, with which it is 

 connected by railway. The latter town is built on piles 

 on the shores of a creek, and, like many of the Sumatran 

 sea-ports, is not very healthy. Kota Eaja is prettily 

 placed and well built. The population numbers about 

 12,000 without the Europeans. The garrison is very 

 large, five or six thousand troops being stationed here 

 and at one or two villages on the coast. Owing to the 

 enormous loss of life from beri-beri, the Dutch have given 

 up many of the earlier forts and rebuilt others more in 

 accordance with modern ideas on hygiene. It is indicative 

 of the unsettled condition of the country that the windows 

 of the railway carriage are made of steel plates, as the 

 trains are frequently fired upon. Trenches surround all the 

 fortified positions, artillery is mounted on elevated bastions, 

 and powerful lights illundne the foreground at night. Like 

 precautions have to be taken by the neighbouring friendly 

 Achenese, sentinels keeping guard day and night from high 

 watch-towers. The railway above mentioned, although 

 the first constructed in Sumatra, is not the only line, 

 another of 30 miles or more in length connecting Medan 

 and other villages in the Dih districts with the sea-port. 



Benkulen, on the southern part of the west coast, 

 and in about 4° south latitude, is chiefly interesting as 

 having been a British possession for nearly a century 

 and a half Driven out by Dutch influence from Bantam, 

 the English established themselves here in 1685, and for 

 a period of a hundred years — up to the time of the founda- 

 tion of Penang in 1785 — held it as their sole possession in 

 the Malay Archipelago. In 1824 they obtained Malacca 

 from the Dutch and yielded them Benkulen in return. 



