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.
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