SUMATRA 
155 
of the centre of the island remains yet unexplored, and in 
the north the Dutch have for more than twenty years 
been vainly endeavouring to subdue Ache (Atjeh or 
Acheen), of the interior of which little or nothing is 
known. While Java is throughout its whole extent 
brought under the influence of civilisation, and covered 
with a network of roads and railways, Sumatra still re¬ 
mains to all intents and purposes a wild and savage land ; 
the only parts at all well known and settled by the 
Dutch being the district lying between Palembang and 
Benkulen, the country around Padang and Deli, and the 
Lampongs. In this respect European civilisation has 
but followed in the footsteps of Hindu influence. We 
have seen Java to be everywhere strewn with the ruins of 
innumerable temples of the Indian cults, except perhaps 
in the Sunda lands, but here in Sumatra such remains 
are not nearly so common, and are of no architectural 
importance. The marked inferiority and lack of progress 
in Sumatra is not very easily explained; it is certainly 
not to be entirely accounted for by any peculiar advan¬ 
tages of Javanese soil. 
2. History. 
The first account which we have of Sumatra is that of 
Marco Polo, who states that he was delayed five months 
in one of its ports by the S.W. monsoon during his pass¬ 
age through the archipelago in 1291. He calls it Java 
Minor, and claims to have visited six out of the eight 
kingdoms into which it was said to be at that time 
divided, but much of the story is obviously fictional. 
Ludovic Yarthema is the next European we know cer¬ 
tainly to have visited it, but not until more than 200 
