For When Visited Early In The Next Century By Nicolo Conti, We Are Told That He "Went To A Fine City Of The Island Of Taprobana, Which Island Is Called By The Natives Shamuthera." Strange To Say, He Speaks Of The Natives As All Idolaters.

Fra Mauro, who got much from Conti, gives us Isola Siamotra over Taprobana; and it shows at once his own judgment and want of confidence in it, when he notes elsewhere that "Ptolemy, professing to describe Taprobana, has really only described Saylan."

We have no means of settling the exact position of the city of Sumatra, though possibly an enquiry among the natives of that coast might still determine the point. Marsden and Logan indicate Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out by Mr. Braddell in the J. Ind. Arch., Malay tradition represents the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra, which seems to imply tolerable proximity. And at the marriage of the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Salih, we are told that the latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like Gulf of Pasei, called in the charts Telo (or Talak) Samawe; a place very likely to have been sought as a shelter to the Great Kaan's fleet during the south-west monsoon. Fine timber, of great size, grows close to the shore of this bay,[1] and would furnish material for Marco's stockades.

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