De Barros, Detailing The Twenty-Nine Kingdoms Which Divided The Coast Of
Sumatra, At The Beginning Of The Portuguese Conquests, Begins With Daya,
And Then Passes Round By The North.
He names as next in order LAMBRIJ, and
then Achem.
This would make Lambri lie between Daya and Achin, for which
there is but little room. And there is an apparent inconsistency; for in
coming round again from the south, his 28th kingdom is Quinchel
(Singkel of our modern maps), the 29th Mancopa, "which falls upon
Lambrij, which adjoins Daya, the first that we named." Most of the data
about Lambri render it very difficult to distinguish it from Achin.
The name of Lambri occurs in the Malay Chronicle, in the account of the
first Mahomedan mission to convert the Island. We shall quote the passage
in a following note.
The position of Lambri would render it one of the first points of Sumatra
made by navigators from Arabia and India; and this seems at one time to
have caused the name to be applied to the whole Island. Thus Rashiduddin
speaks of the very large Island LAMURI lying beyond Ceylon, and adjoining
the country of Sumatra; Odoric also goes from India across the Ocean to
a certain country called LAMORI, where he began to lose sight of the North
Star. He also speaks of the camphor, gold, and lign-aloes which it
produced, and proceeds thence to Sumoltra in the same Island.[1] It is
probable that the verzino or brazil-wood of Ameri (L'Ameri, i.e.
Lambri?) which appears in the mercantile details of Pegolotti was from
this part of Sumatra. It is probable also that the country called
Nanwuli, which the Chinese Annals report, with Sumuntula and others,
to have sent tribute to the Great Kaan in 1286, was this same Lambri which
Polo tells us called itself subject to the Kaan.
In the time of the Sung Dynasty ships from T'swan-chau (or Zayton) bound
for Tashi, or Arabia, used to sail in forty days to a place called
Lanli-poi (probably this is also Lambri, Lambri-puri?). There they
passed the winter, i.e. the south-west monsoon, just as Marco Polo's
party did at Sumatra, and sailing again when the wind became fair, they
reached Arabia in sixty days. (Bretschneider, p. 16.)
[The theory of Sir H. Yule is confirmed by Chinese authors quoted by Mr.
Groeneveldt (Notes on the Malay Archipelago, pp. 98-100): "The country
of Lambri is situated due west of Sumatra, at a distance of three days
sailing with a fair wind; it lies near the sea and has a population of
only about a thousand families.... On the east the country is bordered by
Litai, on the west and the north by the sea, and on the south by high
mountains, at the south of which is the sea again.... At the north-west of
this country, in the sea, at a distance of half a day, is a flat mountain,
called the Hat-island; the sea at the west of it is the great ocean, and
is called the Ocean of Lambri.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 296 of 701
Words from 153713 to 154236
of 370046
