MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 59 



" capital or principal settlement on the coast. Mabco Polo, 

 " who visited Sumatra in 1290, speaks of Samara, which probably 

 " is the same place, as the difference in sound is easily explained 

 " by the circumstances under which Polo's book was written. 

 '• Ibu Batuta (1346) correctly calls it Samathra, or Samuthra, 

 " and describes its situation nearly in the same terms as our 

 " author. As we know very little of the country yet, we are 

 " unable to determine the exact locality now, but we think that 

 " eventually the details given above will assist in doing so. It 

 " appears, however, that this place Sumatra was not situated on the 

 " spot of the present Atjeh, but more to the East, on one of the 

 " smaller rivers which fall into the sea there ; this is proved beyond 

 '■ doubt by the fact that three smaller States were situated due 

 " West of it, before the Indian Ocean, on the western side of the 

 " island, was reached, the last of these three occupying the site of the 

 " present Atjeh, as will be shewn afterwards, We do not learn at 

 " what epoch Sumatra lost its importance and was supplanted by 

 " Atjeh ; the time assigned to this event in the history of the Ming 

 " dynasty, translated just now. is certainly too recent, and we think 

 " that the latter part of this article does not apply to Sumatra, but 

 " to the new capital of Atjeh." 



On p. 144, however, Mr. G-eoeneveldt says : " On p. 92 we 

 " were still unable to determine the position of the old city of 

 " Sumatra ; we might have spoken of Pasei, which is pointed out by 

 " native tradition as the principal place on the coast before it was 

 " supplanted by Atjeh, but we refrained from doing so, as we did 

 "not know how long it had occupied that position. Some new 

 "information has, however, been obtained since from a report of 

 " one of our functionaries who visited Pasei last year, and found 

 " there a village called Samudra, on the left bank of the river, about 

 " three miles from the sea. It is curious to observe that our 

 " informant, just as the Chinese traveller in p. 85, speaks of the 

 " heavy surf which is continually raging at the mouth of the river. 

 " Taking together these different indications, we do not hesitate to 

 " say that this village of Samudra is the remnant of the former 

 " capital. of the country." 



"With regard to this extract, it may be pointed out that the 

 account given in Sejara Malayu indicates with tolerable distinctness 

 the position of the old city of Samudra ; which, according to 



