is said in
a Dutch manuscript that in three days' navigation above the town of
Singkel you come to a great lake, the extent of which is not known.

Barus, the next place of any consequence to the southward, is chiefly
remarkable for having given name throughout the East to the Kapur-barus
or native camphor, as it is often termed to distinguish it from that
which is imported from Japan and China, as already explained. This was
the situation of the most remote of the Dutch factories, long since
withdrawn. It is properly a Malayan establishment, governed by a raja, a
bandhara, and eight pangulus, and with this peculiarity, that the rajas
and bandharas must be alternately and reciprocally of two great families,
named Dulu and D'ilhir. The assumed jurisdiction is said to have extended
formerly to Natal. The town is situated about a league from the coast,
and two leagues farther inland are eight small villages inhabited by
Battas, the inhabitants of which purchase the camphor and benzoin from
the people of the Diri mountains, extending from the southward of Singkel
to the hill of Lasa, behind Barus, where the Tobat district commences.

TAPPANULI.

The celebrated bay of Tappanuli stretches into the heart of the Batta
country, and its shores are everywhere inhabited by that people, who
barter the produce of their land for the articles they stand in need of
from abroad, but do not themselves make voyages by sea. Navigators assert
that the natural advantages of this bay are scarcely surpassed in any
other part of the globe; that all the navies of the world might ride
there with perfect security in every weather; and that such is the
complication of anchoring-places within each other that a large ship
could be so hid in them as not to be found without a tedious search. At
the island of Punchong kechil, on which our settlement stands, it is a
common practice to moor the vessels by a hawser to a tree on shore.
Timber for masts and yards is to be procured in the various creeks with
great facility. Not being favourably situated with respect to the general
track of outward and homeward-bound shipping, and its distance from the
principal seat of our important Indian concerns being considerable, it
has not hitherto been much used for any great naval purposes; but at the
same time our government should be aware of the danger that might arise
from suffering any other maritime power to get footing in a place of this
description. The nati