SUMATRA. 
up ill the iHand of Bant a ^ which covers the mouth of the river, tad con- 
ftitutes a trade of confiderable importance** 
The idea which has been given by a celebrated writer, of the im- 
menfe riches accumulated by the king of Vakmbang^ T had been ufed 
to look upon as wanting foundation in fa<ft, both from the political 
improbability of the circumftance, confidering his ftare of dcpendance, 
and from my not having evpr he^ird the natives falk of his wealth, the 
fame of which might be fuppofed to reach ovir connexions in the inland 
country, did it really exift. Yet J have fmce heard it obferved by well 
informed perfons, who were long converfant in the trade of that place, 
that the influx of Jllmr there, without which tin cannot be purchafed, is 
prodigious, and that there is no apparent channel through which it 
imght be conjectured to flow back ; the Dutch themfclves being obliged 
to pay a large proportion of the value, in dollars, for all the cargoes 
they receive. This \vould prove that the country muft be rich, if not the 
king, who appears to have no exclufive property in tha produce of the 
mines ; and yet the effedt of thefe riches is not to be perceived. A dif- 
ficulty in a point of a fimibr n.imrp, prefents itfelf on the Weft coaft of 
the ifland, where thirty or forty thoufand dollars are annually fent into 
the countT)', hy the Englilh, for pepper ; little or none of which ever 
vifibly returns, (the profits- of the private trade of the refidents being 
always remitted by bills) and yet both chiefs and people are univerfally 
poor. China is fuppofed, with reafon, to be the gulph which, fooner 
or later, fwallows up all the filver of India, and of America too ; but in 
the inllances before us, it is bard to trace Ehe fubfidiary ftreams. 
The late king of Palmhang left the fucceflion of his dominions, by lor," 
to a younger fon i whom the eideft, after his father's death, obliged to 
* The J flan d of ymhdm, on the Malayan coaft, likcivjfe producci abundanw of tin* Rte9 
a port of great commerce. in the iitund of Bintmgt which \% now the me<]ti]m of communi- 
cation with China, it the mart to \vhich this commodity \% mofUy carried. A number of Euro- 
pcaji Ycfft^h, MaSayprawa, and China junks, anoually refort thidicr, both on account of tiie 
gocdnefs gf ihe b&ibour, whiich is a Talt water crcek^ and of ii't Wmg a free pott> 
relinquilh 
