e several sources of information, which are
sufficiently distinct from each other, we may draw this conclusion, that
the religion, which sprang up in Arabia in the seventh century, had not
made any considerable progress in the interior of Sumatra earlier than
the fourteenth, and that the period of its introduction, considering the
vicinity to Malacca, could not be much later. I have been told indeed,
but cannot vouch for its authenticity, that in 1782 these people counted
670 years from the first preaching of their religion, which would carry
the period back to 1112. It may be added that in the island of Ternate
the first Mahometan prince reigned from 1466 to 1486; that Francis
Xavier, a celebrated Jesuit missionary, when he was at Amboina in 1546
observed the people then beginning to learn to write from the Arabians;
that the Malays were allowed to build a mosque at Goak in Makasar
subsequently to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1512; and that in 1603
the whole kingdom had become Mahometan. These islands, lying far to the
eastward, and being of less considerable account in that age than
subsequent transactions have rendered them, the zeal of religious
adventurers did not happen to be directed thither so soon as to the
countries bordering on the sea of India.

By some it has been asserted that the first sultan of Menangkabau was a
Xerif from Mecca, or descendant of the khalifs, named Paduka Sri Sultan
Ibrahim, who, settling in Sumatra, was received with honour by the
princes of the country, Perapati-si-batang and his brother, and acquired
sovereign authority. They add that the sultans who now reside at
Pagar-ruyong and at Suruwasa are lineally descended from that Xerif,
whilst he who resides at Sungei Trap, styled Datu Bandhara putih, derives
his origin from Perapati. But to this supposition there are strong
objections. The idea so generally entertained by the natives, and
strengthened by the glimmering lights that the old writers afford us,
bespeaks an antiquity to this empire that stretches far beyond the
probable era of the establishment of the Mahometan religion in the
island. Radin Tamanggung, son of a king of Madura, a very intelligent
person, and who as a prince himself was conversant with these topics,
positively asserted to me that it was an original Sumatran empire,
antecedent to the introduction of the Arabian faith; instructed, but by
no means conquered, as some had imagined, by people from the peninsula.
S