Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

TOPOGEAPHY OF SUMATRA.Illlocal saying, " Eenkulen is a small place with big houses, where small people bearbig titles." From the end of the seventeenth centurj^ till 1824, it belonged to theEast India Company, which had made it the capital of its Indonesian possessions.But the harbour has gradually silted up, and the local trade has withdrawn a fewmiles farther south, to the more Convenient Sile.bar Bay. The town is unhealthy,and in 1714 the English had already removed their residence to Fort Marlhorouijh,some miles farther north. The houses, injured by earthquakes, are often leftunrepaired, and the neglected appearance of the place is increased by the genei'alFig. 42. Palembako.Scale 1 : 75,000.ta.b oF Gpoverty of its Malay and Chinese inhabitants. The surrounding district is notvery fertile, and the neighbouring coffee plantations have been abandoned.Despite the excellent commercial position of the ports, lying in deep inlets atthe southern extremity of the island, the local trade chiefly in pepper, and dammarresin, has been 'little developed. Even before the Krakatau eruption, which spreadhavoc along the seaboard, the region of the Lampongs, or " Lowlands," did notcontain a single important town. At present the chief centre of population isTvlul;h-Buluiiij, a group of eight villages skirling Lumpong Bay and a neigh-