A GENERAL SKETCH OF SUMATRA, 360 
Pulo Nias alone with a surface of about 1,200 sq. m. has a 
population of 256,000 or above 200 to the sq, m. which is 
greater than Menangkabau. 
XII, Orang Maruwi . 
This tribe occupies the Banya and Si Malu groups with a 
surface of about 600 miles. The population is not ascertain¬ 
ed and does not appear to be great. We may allow provi¬ 
sionally the same rate as P. Batu or 5 to the sq. mile which 
will give 3,000. 
It will be borne in mind that the above estimates are for 
the most part rough approximations. The precise boundaries 
between the different races have nowhere been well ascer¬ 
tained and are doubtless in no case so regular as we have 
assumed for the purpose of calculation, but we believe the 
relative extent of country occupied by each will be found not 
to vary much from what we have allowed. It should also be 
remarked that not only do these races blend with each other 
at their boundaries, many districts and villages in the northern 
region for instance being peopled by Malays andBattas, Ma¬ 
lays and A Chinese, or Achinese and Battas, but most of the 
settlements near the coast possess in addition a very mixed 
population of foreigners from the rest of the Archipelago, 
China, India and Arabia, while Europeans are found in small 
numbers in the Netherlands possessions, chiefly at Palembang, 
Bankaulu and Padang. Our result of little more than two 
millions for the entire population is about one half of the cur¬ 
rent estimates. The most careful of these, that of Mr Fran¬ 
cis, is 4,500,000,* but ours is to a large extent founded on the 
data supplied by him arid his error consists in his having ex¬ 
aggerated the population of the countries for which he had no 
data. In the great majority of cases the effect of more careful 
enquiry has hitherto been to reduce general estimates for par¬ 
ticular localities, and we may therefore believe that the gross 
population is under rather than above two millions. 
^ M&Ifiys • ■ • • ^ • • •« 
Rejangs and Pasuraahs, 
Lam pongs 
Rsttas*# • • * • 
Achinese. ...* 
• • •• • * 
• •»* * • 
• • • t • • 
* i • > • • 
f • • • • • 
2 , 000,000 
600,000 
150,000 
1 , 200,000 
600,000 
Tijd, v. N, I, 1837, 
4,500,000 
