Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/112

Rh 96 ACHIN to the Battas, that remarkable race of anthropophagi who adjoin on the south. The whole area of Achin territory, denned to the best of our ability, will contain about 16,400 English square miles. A rate of 20 per square mile, per haps somewhat too large an average, gives a probable population of 328,000. The production of rice and pepper forms the chief industry of the Achin territory. From Pedir and other ports on the north coast large quantities of betel-nut are exported to continental India, to Burmah, and to Penang for China. Some pepper is got from Pedir, but the chief export is from a number of small ports and anchorages on the west coast, where vessels go from port to port making up a cargo. Achin ponies are of good repute, and are exported. Minor articles of export are sulphur, iron, sappan-wood, gutta-percha, dammer, rattans, bamboos, benzoin, and camphor from the interior forests. The camphor is that from the Drycibalanops camphora, for which so high a price is paid in China, and the whole goes thither, the bulk of that whole being, however, extremely small. Very little silk is now produced, but in the 16th century the quantity seems to have been considerable. What is now wanted for the local textures, which are in some esteem, is imported from China. The chief attraction to the considerable trade that existed at Achin two centuries ago must have been gold. No place in the East, unless Japan, was so abundantly sup plied with gold. We can form no estimate of the annual export, for it is impossible to accept Valentyn s statement that it sometimes reached 80 bahars (512,000 ounces !). Crawford (1820), who always reckoned low, calculated the whole export of Sumatra at 35,530 ounces, and that of Achin at 10,450; whilst Anderson (1826), who tends to put figures too high, reckoned the whole Achin export alone at 32,000 ounces. The chief imports to Achin are opium (largely consumed), rice (the indigenous supply being inadeqiiate), salt, iron ware, piece-goods, arms and ammunition, vessels of copper and pottery, China goods of sorts, and a certain kind of dried fish. The great repute of Achin at one time as a place of trade is shown by the fact, that to this port the first Dutch (1599) and first English (1602) commercial ventures to the Indies were directed. Lancaster, the English com modore, carried letters from Queen Elizabeth to the king of Achin, and was well received by the prince then reign ing, Alauddfn Shah. Another exchange of letters took place between King James I. and Iskandar Muda in 161 3. But native caprice and natural jealousy at the growing force of the European nations in those seas, the reckless rivalries of the latter and their fierce desire for monopoly, were alike destructive of sound trade; and the English factory, though several times set up, was never long main tained. The French made one great effort under Beaulieu (1621) to establish relations with Achin, but nothing came of it. Still the foreign trade of Achin, though subject to spas modic interruptions, was important. Dampier and others speak of the number of foreign merchants settled there, English, Dutch, Danes, Portuguese, Chinese, Banyans from Guzerat, &c. Dampier says the roads were rarely without ten or fifteen sail of different nations, bringing vast quantities of .rice, as well as silks, chintzes, muslins, and opium. Besides. the Chinese merchants settled at Achin, others used to come annually with the junks, ten or twelve in number, which arrived in June. A regular fair was then established, which lasted two months, and was known as &quot;the China camp, a lively scene, and great resort of foreigners. The Achfnese are not identical with the Malays proper either in aspect or language. They are said to be taller, handsomer, and darker, as if with a mixture of blood from India proper. Their language is little known; but though it has now absorbed much Malay, the original part of it ia said to have characteristics connecting it both with the Batta and with the Indo-Chinese tongues. The Achin literature, however, is entirely Malay; it embraces poetry, a good deal of theology, and several chronicles. The name of the state is properly Acheh. This the Portuguese made into Ackem; whilst we, with the Dutch,, learned to call it Achin. The last appears to have been a Persian or Indian form, suggested by jingling analogy with MAchfn (China). The town itself lies very near the north-west extremity of Sumatra, known in charts as Achin Head. Here a girdle of ten or twelve small islands affords protection to the anchorage. This fails in N.W. winds, but it is said that vessels may find safe riding at all seasons by shifting their berths. The town lies between two and three miles from the sea, chiefly on the left bank of a river of no great size. This forms a swampy delta, and discharges by three mouths. The central and chief mouth is about 100 yards wide, and has a depth of 20 to 30 feet within the bar. But the latter has barely 4 feet at low tide; at high tide it admits native craft of 20 or 30 tons, and larger craft in the rainy season. The town, like most Malay towns, con sists of detached houses of timber and thatch, clustered in enclosed groups called Icampongs, and buried in a forest of fruit-trees. The chief feature is the palace of the Sultan, which communicates with the river by a canal, and is enclosed, at least partially, by a wall of cut stone. The valley or alluvial plain in which Achin lies is low, and subject to partial inundation; but it is shut in at a short distance from the town, on the three landward sides, by hills. It is highly cultivated, and abounds in small villages and kampongs, with white mosques interspersed. The hills to the eastward are the spurs of a great volcanic mountain, upwards of 6000 feet in height, called by natives Yamuria, by mariners &quot; the Golden Mountain.&quot; 1 Of the town population we find no modern estimate. The real original territory of the Achinese, called by them Great Achin (in the sense of Achin proper), consists of three districts immediately round the city, distinguished respectively as the 26, the 25, and the 22 mukims 2 (or hundreds, to use the nearest English term). Each of these three districts has two heads, called pany- hmas; and these, according to some modern accounts, constitute the council of state, who are the chief adminis trators, and in whose hands it lies to depose the sovereign or to sanction his choice of a successor. Late notices speak of a chief minister, apparently distinct from these; and another important member of the government is the ShAbandar, who is over all matters of customs, shipping, and commerce. The court of Achin, in the 17th century, maintained a good deal of pomp; and, according to Beaulieu, the king had always 900 elephants. These animals, though found throughout Sumatra, are now no longer tamed or kept. Hostilities with the Portuguese began from the time of the first independent king of Achin; and they had little remission till the power of Portugal fell with the loss of Malacca (1641). Not less than ten times before that event were armaments despatched from Achin to reduce Malacca, and more than once its garrison was very hard pressed. One of these armadas, equipped by Iskandar Muda in 1615, gives an idea of the king s resources. It consisted of 500 sail, of which 250 were galleys, and 1 Several other great volcanic cones exist in the Achin territory, and two visible from seaward rise to a height of 11,000 feet or more in the unexplored interior. 2 A niukim is said properly to embrace 44 households.