la or chersonesus had the epithet
of aurea given to it on account of the abundance of gold carried thither
from Monancabo and Barros, countries in the island of C(cedilla)amatra.

Having thus noticed what has been written by persons who actually visited
this part of India at an early period, or published from their oral
communication by contemporaries, it will not be thought necessary to
multiply authorities by quoting the works of subsequent commentators and
geographers, who must have formed their judgments from the same original
materials.

NAME OF SUMATRA.

With respect to the name of Sumatra, we perceive that it was unknown both
to the Arabian travellers and to Marco Polo, who indeed was not likely to
acquire it from the savage natives with whom he had intercourse. The
appellation of Java minor which he gives to the island seems to have been
quite arbitrary, and not grounded upon any authority, European or
Oriental, unless we can suppose that he had determined it to be the
I'azadith nesos of Ptolemy; but from the other parts of his relation it
does not appear that he was acquainted with the work of that great
geographer, nor could he have used it with any practical advantage. At
all events it could not have led him to the distinction of a greater and
a lesser Java; and we may rather conclude that, having visited (or heard
of) the great island properly so called, and not being able to learn the
real name of another, which from its situation and size might well be
regarded as a sister island, he applied the same to both, with the
relative epithets of major and minor. That Ptolemy's Jaba-dib or dio was
intended, however vaguely, for the island of Java, cannot be doubted. It
must have been known to the Arabian merchants, and he was indefatigable
in his inquiries; but at the same time that they communicated the name
they might be ill qualified to describe its geographical position.

In the rude narrative of Odoricus we perceive the first approach to the
modern name in the word Sumoltra. Those who immediately followed him
write it with a slight, and often inconsistent, variation in the
orthography, Sumotra, Samotra, Zamatra, and Sumatra. But none of these
travellers inform us from whom they learned it; whether from the natives
or from persons who had been in the habits of frequenting it from the
continent of India; which latter I think the more probable. Reland, an
able oriental scholar, who directed his attention to t