1832.] 
ISLAND OF SUMATRA. 
139 
volcanic action. We have already alluded to the occasional erup- 
tions of burning mountains, of which there are several, generally 
quiescent, on the island. Earthquakes are frequent, though not 
often violent or destructive in their effects, v^^hen compared with 
those which have successively shaken the western coast of South 
America. Writers have alluded to one which occurred in the dis- 
trict of Manna, on the southwest coast of Sumatra, about one , 
hundred and fifty miles northwest from the Strait of Sunda, in the 
year 1770 ; when a village was destroyed by the houses falling 
and taking fire, with the loss of some lives. The ground was 
rent for some distance, presenting a yawning chasm or fissure of 
several fathoms in depth, from the sides of which issued a bitu- 
minous matter, and the earth was observed alternately to contract 
and dilate for many days. The hills in the interior seemed to nod, 
as in obeisance to each other ; and new formations were produced 
on the seashore. Another, still more disastrous in its effects, oc- 
curred at Padang, in 1097, when more than three hundred lives 
were lost. 
The origin of the inhabitants of Sumatra is a question of diffi- 
cult solution, being involved in as much doubt and conjecture as 
is that of the aborigines of our own country. The term Malay 
cannot be indiscriminately applied to the Sumatrans en masse, as 
they evidently comprise several other very distinct races of people, 
both as to origin, language, religion, &c. viz : — the Acheens of the 
north, with a mixture of Moorish blood, from western India — the 
Battas, the Rejangs, and the Lampoons. It is true that the dis- 
tinctive traits which marked those various tribes, at the com- 
mencement of the sixteenth century, have in some measure dis- 
appeared ; owing to a more general intercourse between them, by 
the breaking up of various monarchies and petty kingdoms, 
whereby something analogous to a national character has been 
given to the whole accessible population, at least on the seaboard. 
Still, however, it must be conceded that the inhabitants of the 
interior cannot be included in this general remark. They have 
either kept aloof from the supposed amalgamation, or their moral 
as well as personal features are too strongly marked to be readily 
changed by a mixture of blood ; for they still remain a dis- 
tinct people. This remark is perhaps applicable to every island 
in the Archipelago, and tends to prove that the Malays were not 
