"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. 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. Jordanus also has the story of the hairy men.
Galvano heard that there were on the Island certain people called Daraque
Dara (?), which had tails like unto sheep. And the King of Tidore told
him of another such tribe on the Isle of Batochina. Mr. St. John in Borneo
met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of such a race
inhabiting the north-east coast of that Island. The appendage was 4 inches
long and very stiff; so the people all used perforated seats. This Borneo
story has lately been brought forward in Calcutta, and stoutly maintained,
on native evidence, by an English merchant. The Chinese also have their
tailed men in the mountains above Canton. In Africa there have been many
such stories, of some of which an account will be found in the Bulletin
de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom. iii. p. 31. It was a story among
mediaeval Mahomedans that the members of the Imperial House of Trebizond
were endowed with short tails, whilst mediaeval Continentals had like
stories about Englishmen, as Matthew Paris relates. Thus we find in the
Romance of Coeur de Lion, Richard's messengers addressed by the "Emperor
of Cyprus": -
"Out, Taylards, of my palys!
Now go, and say your tayled King
That I owe him nothing."
- Weber, II. 83.
The Princes of Purbandar, in the Peninsula of Guzerat, claim descent from
the monkey-god Hanuman, and allege in justification a spinal elongation
which gets them the name of Punchariah, "Taylards."
(Ethe's Kazwini, p. 221; Anderson, p. 210; St. John, Forests of the
Far East, I. 40; Galvano, Hak. Soc. 108, 120; Gildemeister, 194;
Allen's Indian Mail, July 28, 1869; Mid. Kingd. I. 293; N. et Ext.
XIII. i. 380; Mat. Paris under A.D. 1250; Tod's Rajasthan, I. 114.)
NOTE 3. - The Camphor called Fansuri is celebrated by Arab writers at
least as old as the 9th century, e.g., by the author of the first part
of the Relations, by Mas'udi in the next century, also by Avicenna, by
Abulfeda, by Kazwini, and by Abul Fazl, etc. In the second and third the
name is miswritten Kansur, and by the last Kaisuri, but there can be
no doubt of the correction required.
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