1544, I. 116; Buesching, IV. 277; Gildem. p. 209;
Ain-i-Akb. p. 78.) In Serapion we find the same camphor described as
that of Pansor; and when, leaving Arab authorities and the earlier
Middle Ages we come to Garcias, he speaks of the same article under the
name of camphor of Barros. And this is the name - Kapur Barus - derived
from the port which has been the chief shipping-place of Sumatran camphor
for at least three centuries, by which the native camphor is still known
in Eastern trade, as distinguished from the Kapur China or
Kapur-Japun, as the Malays term the article derived in those countries by
distillation from the Laurus Camphora. The earliest western mention of
camphor is in the same prescription by the physician Aetius (circa A.D.
540) that contains one of the earliest mentions of musk. (supra, I. p.
279.) The prescription ends: "and if you have a supply of camphor add two
ounces of that." (Aetii Medici Graeci Tetrabiblos, etc., Froben, 1549, p.
910.)
It is highly probable that Fansur and Barus may be not only the same
locality but mere variations of the same name.[2] The place is called in
the Shijarat Malayu, Pasuri, a name which the Arabs certainly made
into Fansuri in one direction, and which might easily in another, by a
very common kind of Oriental metathesis, pass into Barusi. The legend in
the Shijarat Malayu relates to the first Mahomedan mission for the
conversion of Sumatra, sent by the Sherif of Mecca via India. After
sailing from Malabar the first place the party arrived at was PASURI, the
people of which embraced Islam. They then proceeded to LAMBRI, which also
accepted the Faith. Then they sailed on till they reached Haru (see on
my map Aru on the East Coast), which did likewise. At this last place
they enquired for SAMUDRA, which seems to have been the special object of
their mission, and found that they had passed it. Accordingly they
retraced their course to PERLAK, and after converting that place went on
to SAMUDRA, where they converted Mara Silu the King. (See note 1, ch. x.
above.) This passage is of extreme interest as naming four out of
Marco's six kingdoms, and in positions quite accordant with his
indications. As noticed by Mr. Braddell, from whose abstract I take the
passage, the circumstance of the party having passed Samudra unwittingly
is especially consistent with the site we have assigned to it near the
head of the Bay of Pasei, as a glance at the map will show.
Valentyn observes: "Fansur can be nought else than the famous Pantsur,
no longer known indeed by that name, but a kingdom which we become
acquainted with through Hamza Pantsuri, a celebrated Poet, and native of
this Pantsur. It lay in the north angle of the Island, and a little west
of Achin: it formerly was rife with trade and population, but would have
been utterly lost in oblivion had not Hamza Pantsuri made us again
acquainted with it." Nothing indeed could well be "a little west of
Achin"; this is doubtless a slip for "a little down the west coast from
Achin." Hamza Fantsuri, as he is termed by Professor Veth, who also
identifies Fantsur with Barus, was a poet of the first half of the 17th
century, who in his verses popularised the mystical theology of Shamsuddin
Shamatrani (supra, p. 291), strongly tinged with pantheism. The works of
both were solemnly burnt before the great mosque of Achin about 1640. (J.
Ind. Arch. V. 312 seqq; Valentyn, Sumatra, in Vol. V., p. 21; Veth,
Atchin, Leiden, 1873, p. 38.)
Mas'udi says that the Fansur Camphor was found most plentifully in years
rife with storms and earthquakes. Ibn Batuta gives a jumbled and highly
incorrect account of the product, but one circumstance that he mentions is
possibly founded on a real superstition, viz., that no camphor was formed
unless some animal had been sacrificed at the root of the tree, and the
best quality only then when a human victim had been offered. Nicolo Conti
has a similar statement: "The Camphor is found inside the tree, and if
they do not sacrifice to the gods before they cut the bark, it disappears
and is no more seen." Beccari, in our day, mentions special ceremonies
used by the Kayans of Borneo, before they commence the search. These
superstitions hinge on the great uncertainty of finding camphor in any
given tree, after the laborious process of cutting it down and splitting
it, an uncertainty which also largely accounts for the high price. By far
the best of the old accounts of the product is that quoted by Kazwini from
Mahomed Ben Zakaria Al-Razi: "Among the number of marvellous things in
this Island" (Zanij for Zabaj, i.e. Java or Sumatra) "is the Camphor
Tree, which is of vast size, insomuch that its shade will cover a hundred
persons and more. They bore into the highest part of the tree and thence
flows out the camphor-water, enough to fill many pitchers. Then they open
the tree lower down about the middle, and extract the camphor in lumps."
[This very account is to be found in Ibn Khordadhbeh. (De Goeje's
transl. p. 45.) - H.C.] Compare this passage, which we may notice has
been borrowed bodily by Sindbad of the Sea, with what is probably the best
modern account, Junghuhn's: "Among the forest trees (of Tapanuli adjoining
Barus) the Camphor Tree (Dryabalanops Camphora) attracts beyond all the
traveller's observation, by its straight columnar and colossal grey trunk,
and its mighty crown of foliage, rising high above the canopy of the
forest. It exceeds in dimensions the Rasamala,[3] the loftiest tree of
Java, and is probably the greatest tree of the Archipelago, if not of the
world,[4] reaching a height of 200 feet. One of the middling size which I
had cut down measured at the base, where the camphor leaks out, 7-1/2
Paris feet in diameter (about 8 feet English); its trunk rose to 100 feet,
with an upper diameter of 5 feet, before dividing, and the height of the
whole tree to the crown was 150 feet.
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