of Malik Al-Salih, and the number of
Mahomedans attracted to his court, probably led in the course of the 14th
century to the extension of the name of Sumatra to the whole island. 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.

When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the leading
state upon the coast, and certainly no state _called_ Sumatra continued to
exist. Whether the _city_ continued to exist even in decay is not easy to
discern. The _Ain-i-Akbari_ says that the best civet is that which is
brought from _the seaport town of Sumatra, in the territory of Achin_, and
is called _Sumatra Zabad_; but this may have been based on old
information. Valentyn seems to recognise the existence of a place of note
called _Samadra_ or _Samotdara_, though it is not entered on his map. A
famous mystic theologian who flourished under the great King of Achin,
Iskandar Muda, and died in 1630, bore the name of Shamsuddin _Shamatrani_,
which seems to point to the city of Sumatra as his birth place.[2] The
m