^ SUMATRA, 
parts of the world, whicli the barriers of nature will allow the Ikill and 
iiiduftry of man to approach. 
The extcnfive and obvloufly fituated ifland, which is the fubjeQ: of 
Sumatra un> the prefeiit work, feemsj notwjthftanding feme obfcurc and felf contra- 
kivov.n to ihe , i -ni » i i 11 
didtory paffages of Ptolomey and Pliny, to have been utterly unknown 
to the Greek or Roman geographers, whofe dil cover ies, or conjectures 
rather, carried them no farther than C^Un ; which with more &adow 
Ceylon proba- of probability, was their ^ aproham^ than Simatrdy although that name, 
bly thttr Ta- i- i 1. 1 -ji j 
]5obaiic, durmg the middle ages, was uniformly applied to the latter iiland. 
Whether, in fadt, the appellation of Taprobane, as introduced by the 
ancients, belonged to any place really exifting, affords fome room to be 
fceptical. Cbferving that a number of commodities, not produced in 
Europe, came from an iiland or iflands in the inx^v^M cAcrcmity of the 
eafl, whole fituation they were ignorant of, they poffibly might have 
placed in their charts, one of ample extent, which fliould ftand as the 
arbitrary reprefcntative of the whole. This fuppofition cuts fliort the 
various arguments that have been adduced by different writers, in fup- 
port of the pretenfions of any particular ifland to that celebrated name. 
The idea of Sumatra being the country of Opbir^ whither SoJomon fent 
his fleets, is too vague, and the fubjeiSt wrapt in a veil of too remote an- 
tiquity, to merit difcufiion.* In times much later, the indentiijjj.of Su- 
matra, as defer ibed, or alluded to by travellers, app'ears not a little 
equivocal. The Arab travellers who, about the year 1173, penetrated 
Called Rainiil into India and China, fpeak of an ifland which thev cal^ ^^^mm, whofe 
^tUefsr'* dcfcription coinciciing LuiviiiDiy with the real fituation and produ<ftions 
of Sumatra, allows us to conclude, that it was it they defigned. Marco 
Paulo, the faaious Venetian traveller ; whofe writings publifhed in 1 269, 
though long condemned as idle tales, have many internal marks of au- 
jaTtiMmorby thenticity J defcribes an iiland which he calls Java Mnor^ that appears, 
Marco Paulo. attentive perulal of ill fpelt names, and more efpecially of fome 
• A mouncam in Sumatra is called by the name of j but this has be«n given to it by 
JEuropeans^ia modern days. 
flriking 
