A GENERAL SKETCH OF SUMATRA. 
362 
Although in anticipation of the ethnographical parts of our 
enquiries, yet as it may perhaps be convenient to postpone these 
until the different regions, with their population, industry, pro¬ 
ducts and commerce, have been described, I shall here draw at¬ 
tention to a circumstance which gives a peculiar interest to 
Sumatra, and which it will be well to keep in our view when 
engaged with particular races. Asia has two great Penin¬ 
sulas advancing into the southern ocean, the Indian termi¬ 
nating nearly in the same latitude where Sumatra begins, and 
the Indo-Chinese terminating in the Malayan above a degree 
more to the south, or about the latitude of the middle of Su¬ 
matra. The one Lands End however is about 3° to the west¬ 
ward of A chin, while the other is only separated from the coast 
of Kampar by a land - locked and calm strait 35 miles broad, 
crowded with islets forming a series of stepping stones, the 
widest interval between which is about four miles. Whenever 
the inhabitants of the continent learned to use the rudest boat 
or raft, Sumatra became practically united to Asia at this point; 
but not until the art of navigation had made considerable pro¬ 
gress in the Indian Peninsula, not until its coasting trade had 
long flourished and extended, and its inhabitants reached the 
civilization which grows with such a trade, could it become 
connected with Sumatra either by its navigators sailing- round 
the Bay of Bengal or boldly crossing the open sea.. The 
period therefore which separated the first colonization of 
Sumatra from Asia by the Malay Peninsula, from its first 
communication with the Indian Peninsula, was that which 
intervenes between the savage skill to make a canoe and the 
civilized art of building a'ship. What the condition of 
the Indian and Indo-chinese people was before art was 
developed, we know from the numerous tribes that have 
remained from ancient times in every mountain range from 
the western chain of India to the eastern one of An am, 
protected by their steeps and forests from the absorbing 
and exterminating powers of surrounding civilization. The fact 
which I wish to be kept in mind in our further enquiries is this, 
that Sumatra, which must have been continually subject to the 
influence of Indian and Arab traders and emigrants from the 
time when the first voyage from Malabar or the Coromandel 
coast or from Ceylon discovered its gold, camphor and ben¬ 
jamin, has also until now, during a period of about 2,000 years 
at least,* preserved remnants of the aboriginal Indo-chinese 
people, and amongst its hinduised tribes, unequivocal ves- 
» Large ships of the Coromandel Coast are described as crossing the Bay of 
Bengal to Sumatra (Cfaryse) by an Alexandrian author of the first century (Pe- 
riplus af the Erythrian Sea ) They appear to have belonged to Masulipatauo, 
A A a 
