e people of that island. Richard Eden tells it of the Laplanders.
(_Notes on Russia_, Hak. Soc. II. 224.)

NOTE 4.--_Basma_, as Valentyn indicated, seems to be the PASEI of the
Malays, which the Arabs probably called _Basam_ or the like, for the
Portuguese wrote it PACEM. [Mr. J.T. Thomson writes (_Proc.R.G.S._ XX.
p. 221) that of its actual position there can be no doubt, it being the
Passier of modern charts.--H.C.] Pasei is mentioned in the Malay
Chronicle as founded by Malik-al-Salih, the first Mussulman sovereign of
Samudra, the next of Marco's kingdoms. He assigned one of these states to
each of his two sons, Malik al-Dhahir and Malik al-Mansur; the former of
whom was reigning at Samudra, and apparently over the whole coast, when
Ibn Batuta was there (about 1346-47). There is also a Malay History of the
Kings of Pasei to which reference has already been made.

Somewhat later Pasei was a great and famous city. Majapahit, Malacca, and
Pasei being reckoned the three great cities of the Archipelago. The
stimulus of conversion to Islam had not taken effect on those Sumatran
states at the time of Polo's voyage, but it did so soon afterwards, and,
low as they have now fallen, their power at one time was no delusion.
Achin, which rose to be the chief of them, in 1615 could send against
Portuguese Malacca an expedition of more than 500 sail, 100 of which were
galleys larger than any then constructed in Europe, and carried from 600
to 800 men each.

[Dr. Schlegel writes to me that according to the Malay Dictionary of Von de
Wall and Van der Tuuk, n. 414-415, Polo's _Basman_ is the Arab
pronunciation of _Paseman_, the modern Ophir in West Sumatra. _Gunung
Paseman_ is Mount Ophir.--H.C.]

[Illustration: The three Asiatic Rhinoceroses, (upper) Indicus, (middle)
Sondaicus, (lower) Sumatranus.[2]]

NOTE 5.--The elephant seems to abound in the forest tracts throughout the
whole length of Sumatra, and the species is now determined to be a
distinct one (_E. Sumatranus_) from that of continental India and identical
with that of Ceylon.[3] The Sumatran elephant in former days was caught
and tamed extensively. Ibn Batuta speaks of 100 elephants in the train
of Al Dhahir, the King of Sumatra Proper, and in the 17th century Beaulieu
says the King of Achin had always 900. Giov. d'Empoli also mentions them at
Pedir in the beginning of the 16th century; and see _Pasei Chronicle_
quoted in _J. As._ ser. IV. tom. ix. pp. 258-259. This sp