side are much facilitated by
water-carriage.

LAKE.

Advantage is taken in the first place of a large lake, called Laut-danau,
situated at the foot of the range of high mountains named gunong Besi,
inland of the country of Priaman, the length of which is described by
some as being equal to a day's sailing, and by others as no more than
twenty-five or thirty miles, abounding with fish (especially of two
species, known by the names of sasau and bili), and free from alligators.

RIVERS.

From this, according to the authority of a map drawn by a native, issues
a river called Ayer Ambelan, which afterwards takes the name of
Indragiri, along which, as well as the two other great rivers of Siak to
the northward, and Jambi to the southward, the navigation is frequent,
the banks of all of them being peopled with Malayan colonies. Between
Menangkabau and Palembang the intercourse must, on account of the
distance, be very rare, and the assertion that in the intermediate
country there exists another great lake, which sends its streams to both
sides of the island, appears not only to be without foundation in fact,
but also at variance with the usual operations of nature; as I believe it
may be safely maintained that, however numerous the streams which furnish
the water of a lake, it can have only one outlet; excepting, perhaps, in
flat countries, where the course of the waters has scarcely any
determination, or under such a nice balance of physical circumstances as
is not likely to occur.

POLITICAL DECLINE.

When the island was first visited by European navigators this state must
have been in its decline, as appears from the political importance at
that period of the kings of Achin, Pedir, and Pase, who, whilst they
acknowledged their authority to be derived from him as their lord
paramount, and some of them paid him a trifling complimentary tribute,
acted as independent sovereigns. Subsequently to this an Achinese
monarch, under the sanction of a real or pretended grant, obtained from
one of the sultans, who, having married his daughter, treated her with
nuptial slight, and occasioned her to implore her father's interference,
extended his dominion along the western coast, and established his
panglimas or governors in many places within the territory of
Menangkabau, particularly at Priaman, near the great volcano-mountain.
This grant is said to have been extorted not by the force of arms but by
an appeal to the decision of