in
chaps or marks at the corners. The natives presume them to be Dutch, but
say that the latter do not resemble the present mark of the Company.
There is some appearance of the date 1100. The informant (named Raja
Intan), who had repeatedly seen and examined it, added that M. Palm,
governor of Padang, once sent Malays with paper and paint to endeavour to
take off the inscription, but they did not succeed; and the Dutch, whose
arms never penetrated to that part of the country, are ignorant of its
meaning. It is noticed in the Malayan map. Should it prove to be a Hindu
monument it will be thought curious.

CHAPTER 19.

KINGDOMS OF INDRAPURA, ANAK-SUNGEI, PASSAMMAN, SIAK.

INDRAPURA.

Among the earliest dismemberments of the Menangkabau empire was the
establishment of Indrapura as an independent kingdom. Though now in its
turn reduced to a state of little importance, it was formerly powerful in
comparison with its neighbours, and of considerable magnitude, including
Anak-Sungei and extending as far as Kattaun. Some idea of its antiquity
may be formed from a historical account given by the Sultan of Bantam to
the intelligent traveller Corneille le Brun, in which it is related that
the son of the Arabian prince who first converted the Javans to the
religion of the Prophet, about the year 1400, having obtained for himself
the sovereignty of Bantam, under the title of pangeran, married the
daughter of the raja of Indrapura, and received as her portion the
country of the Sillabares, a people of Banca-houlou.

CLAIMS OF THE SULTAN OF BANTAM.

Upon this cession appears to be grounded the modern claim of the sultan
to this part of the coast, which, previously to the treaty of Paris in
1763, was often urged by his sovereigns, the Dutch East India Company.
His dominion is said indeed to have extended from the southward as far as
Urei river, and at an early period to Betta or Ayer Etam, between Ipu and
Moco-moco, but that the intermediate space was ceded by him to the raja
of Indrapura, in satisfaction for the murder of a prince, and that a
small annual tax was laid by the latter on the Anak-sungei people on
account of the same murder (being the fourth part of a dollar, a bamboo
of rice, and a fowl, from each village), which is now paid to the sultan
of Moco-moco. In the year 1682 the district of Ayer Aji threw off its
dependence on Indrapura. In 1696 Raja Pasisir Barat, under the influence
of the Dutch, was placed on the