The History of Sumatra
The island of Sumatra, which, in point of situation and extent, holds aconspicuous rank on the terraqueous globe, and is surpassed by few in thebountiful indulgences of nature, has in all ages been unaccountablyneglected by writers insomuch that it is at this day less known, as tothe interior parts more especially, than the remotest island of moderndiscovery; although it has been constantly resorted to by Europeans forsome centuries, and the English have had a regular establishment therefor the last hundred years. It is true that the commercial importance ofSumatra has much declined. It is no longer the Emporium of Eastern richeswhither the traders of the West resorted with their cargoes to exchangethem for the precious merchandise of the Indian Archipelago: nor does itboast now the political consequence it acquired when the rapid progressof the Portuguese successes there first received a check. Thatenterprising people, who caused so many kingdoms to shrink from theterror of their arms
..., met with nothing but disgrace in their attemptsagainst Achin, whose monarchs made them tremble in their turn. Yet stillthe importance of this island in the eye of the natural historian hascontinued undiminished, and has equally at all periods laid claim to anattention that does not appear, at any, to have been paid to it.The Portuguese being better warriors than philosophers, and more eager toconquer nations than to explore their manners or antiquities, it is notsurprising that they should have been unable to furnish the world withany particular and just description of a country which they must haveregarded with an evil eye. The Dutch were the next people from whom wehad a right to expect information. They had an early intercourse with theisland, and have at different times formed settlements in almost everypart of it; yet they are almost silent with respect to its history.* Butto what cause are we to ascribe the remissness of our own countrymen,whose opportunities have been equal to those of their predecessors orcontemporaries? It seems difficult to account for it; but the fact isthat, excepting a short sketch of the manners prevailing in a particulardistrict of the island, published in the Philosophical Transactions ofthe year 1778, not one page of information respecting the inhabitants ofSumatra has been communicated to the public by any Englishman who hasresided there.(*Footnote. At the period when this remark was written, I was not awarethat an account of the Dutch settlements and commerce in Sumatra by M.Adolph Eschels-kroon had in the preceding year been published atHamburgh, in the German language; nor had the transactions of a literarysociety established at Batavia, whose first volume appeared there in1779, yet reached this country. The work, indeed, of Valentyn, containinga general history of the European possessions in the East Indies, shouldhave exempted a nation to which oriental learning is largely indebtedfrom what I now consider as an --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.
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