SUMATRA 
211 
neighbourhood of the Singkara Lake, Fort van dei 
Capellen. 
Ache, known to the Dutch and natives as Kota Raja, 
lies some three miles from the port Olele, with which it is 
connected by railway. The latter town is built on piles 
on the shores of a creek, and, like many of the Sumatran 
sea-ports, is not very healthy. Kota Raja is prettily 
placed and well built. The population numbers about 
12,000 without the Europeans. The garrison is very 
large, five or six thousand troops being stationed here 
and at one or two villages on the coast. Owing to the 
enormous loss of life from beri-beri, the Dutch have given 
up many of the earlier forts and rebuilt others more in 
accordance with modern ideas on hygiene. It is indicative 
of the unsettled condition of the country that the windows 
of the railway carriage are made of steel plates, as the 
trains are frequently fired upon. Trenches surround all the 
fortified positions, artillery is mounted on elevated bastions, 
and powerful lights illumine the foreground at night. Like 
precautions have to be taken by the neighbouring friendly 
Achenese, sentinels keeping guard day and night from high 
watch-towers. The railway above mentioned, although 
the first constructed in Sumatra, is not the only line, 
another of 30 miles or more in length connecting Medan 
and other villages in the Dili districts with the sea-port. 
Benkulen, on the southern part of the west coast, 
and in about 4° south latitude, is chiefly interesting as 
having been a British possession for nearly a century 
and a half. Driven out by Dutch influence from Bantam, 
the English established themselves here in 1685, and for 
a period of a hundred years—up to the time of the founda¬ 
tion of Penang in 1785—held it as their sole possession in 
the Malay Archipelago. In 1824 they obtained Malacca 
from the Dutch and yielded them Benkulen in return. 
