Ships Coming From The West All Take This
Island As A Landmark." Mr. Groeneveldt Adds:
"Lambri [according to his
extracts from Chinese authors] must have been situated on the
north-western corner of the island of Sumatra, on or near the spot of the
present Achin:
We see that it was bounded by the sea on the north and the
west, and that the Indian Ocean was called after this insignificant place,
because it was considered to begin there. Moreover, the small island at
half a day's distance, called Hat-island, perfectly agrees with the small
islands Bras or Nasi, lying off Achin, and of which the former, with its
newly-erected lighthouse, is a landmark for modern navigation, just what it
is said in our text to have been for the natives then. We venture to think
that the much discussed situation of Marco Polo's Lambri is definitely
settled herewith." The Chinese author writes: "The mountains [of Lambri]
produce the fragrant wood called Hsiang-chen Hsiang." Mr. Groeneveldt
remarks (l.c. p. 143) that this "is the name of a fragrant wood, much used
as incense, but which we have not been able to determine. Dr. Williams says
it comes from Sumatra, where it is called laka-wood, and is the product of
a tree to which the name of Tanarius major is given by him. For different
reasons, we think this identification subject to doubt."
Captain M.J.C. Lucardie mentions a village called Lamreh, situated at
Atjeh, near Tungkup, in the xxvi. Mukim, which might be a remnant of the
country of Lameri. (Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 235.) - H.C.]
(De Barros, Dec. III. Bk. V. ch. i.; Elliot, I. 70; Cathay, 84,
seqq.; Pegol. p. 361; Pauthier, p. 605.)
NOTE 2. - Stories of tailed or hairy men are common in the Archipelago, as
in many other regions. Kazwini tells of the hairy little men that are
found in Ramni (Sumatra) with a language like birds' chirping. Marsden was
told of hairy people called Orang Gugu in the interior of the Island,
who differed little, except in the use of speech, from the Orang utang.
Since his time a French writer, giving the same name and same description,
declares that he saw "a group" of these hairy people on the coast of
Andragiri, and was told by them that they inhabited the interior of
Menangkabau and formed a small tribe. It is rather remarkable that this
writer makes no allusion to Marsden though his account is so nearly
identical (L'Oceanie in L'Univers Pittoresque, I. 24.) [One of the
stories of the Merveilles de l'Inde (p. 125) is that there are
anthropophagi with tails at Lulu bilenk between Fansur and Lameri. - H.C.]
Mr. Anderson says there are "a few wild people in the Siak country, very
little removed in point of civilisation above their companions the
monkeys," but he says nothing of hairiness nor tails. For the earliest
version of the tail story we must go back to Ptolemy and the Isles of the
Satyrs in this quarter; or rather to Ctesias who tells of tailed men on an
Island in the Indian Sea.
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