from the coast, in a direct line, it is 20 feet above the level of the river in the dry
season, but only 5 feet during the rains, when the river is swollen by 15 feet. th e
soil, at the town, is composed of a rich vegetable mould, over a bed of clay mixed
with fine sand. At the depth of 11 or 12 feet there is a stratum of peat of various
depth, containing trunks of trees of different dimensions the undecayed bark,
and the fibres of the wood retaining much of their natural colour, strength, and
elasticity. The stratum below this is a fine light-coloured clay, slightly mixed with
decayed vegetable matter in specks, where the stratum of peat disappears. Neither
stone or gravel are found in the soil, though pebbles of quartz and fragments of ironstone
are washed down by the river from the interior and deposited on the sand-
banks. Below the town, the banks continue to exhibit the same strata, till their
height is considerably reduced, when the stratum of peat entirely disappears.
For full 30 miles from the sea in a straight line, or 50 by the course of the mam
river the country of Jambi is uninhabited and uninhabitable, being in fact, a wooded
marsh. “ The banks of the Kwala-fiur,” says Mr. Crooke, who sailed up this branch,
“ are throughout uninhabitable from their lowness, and present one uniform character
of wooded and impenetrable loneliness. . . . Along the banks and m the neighbourhood
of the streams and rivers only, is there any open ground or cultivation, a thick
forest extending in every other quarter. . .. , ,
From this description of the country, it is certain that the population must be
extremely scanty in relation to the area, which is probably not less than 15,000
square geographical miles. In ascending the river to the town of Jambi, Mr. Crooke
counted only twelve villages, the total number of houses among them being only 118,
with about perhaps from six to seven hundred inhabitants. The principal place or
seat of government, called also, like tbe country and river, Jambi, is estimated by
Mr. Crooke, including the villages just named, to have a population not exceeding
6000, but of the population of the upper portion of the Jambi and its affluents,
nothing is known. . „
The following is Mr. Crooke’s account of the chief town, which, by the course ot
the river, and reckoning from its western branch, is about a hundred miles from the
sea. “ The town of Jambi is about three quarters of a mile in extent on both banks
of the river, to which it is nearly confined, the natives occupying the whole of the
right bank, and the Arabs and other strangers, who are settled there, a part of the
left. Many of the houses, especially those of the Arab kampong (quarter), are sided
and partitioned in a neat manner with planks, and roofed with tiles, shaped with a
waving line cross-ways, of excellent manufacture. A few are covered with a thatch
of gomuti, which forms a durable roof, and some have their sides constructed of large
thick pieces of bark. But the greater number are huts of matand ataps (palmetto
leaves) built on posts in the usual Malay style. Besides these descriptions of buildings
there is also a number of houses upon rafts composed of huge trunks of trees,
clumsily put together, which, during the periodical swelling of the river, are afloat
and moveable, but in the dry season are, generally, especially the larger ones, lodged
on a sandy flat, which becomes dry and confines the stream on the right. There is
also a number of little rafts supporting a small hut, attached to the better class of
houses, and used for the convenience of bathing, of which the women, in particular,
seem to be very fond. In fact, there i3 an appearance of cleanliness in the persons
and houses of the inhabitants, rather unusual in Malay towns. They have a mosque,
but it is in a neglected and ruinous condition. A burying-ground, about three
quarters of a mile below the town, appears to claim more attention: many of its
tombs are carved and gilded and inclosed by a tiled building.”—Andersoffs Mission,
Appendix At the town, which is destitute of all defence, the river, in the dry season,
is 450 yards broad and has a depth of three fathoms, but in the rainy season its
breadth is doubled, and it gains 15 feet in depth. All the way from the sea to the
town the depth in the dry season ranges from 12 to 15 fathoms, with the exception of
one spot below the town where it is only 8 feet. . „
As to roads, properly speaking, there are none. “ The mode of communication,
says Mr. Crooke, “ between villages, as well as distant parts of the country, is almost
exclusively by water, there being few habitations that are not situated on the rivers,
or near them; and such routes as do exist are mere foot-paths through the woods.
They extend, however, to Padang, Bencoolen, and other parts on the western side of
the island, with which they are the means of commercial intercourse.”
The climate, at the town of Jambi, is considered by the inhabitants healthy and
agreeable, but the lower parts of the country subject to agues. In the beginning
of July, the nominal winter, the thermometer of Fahrenheit, in no very favourable
situation, stood, at sunrise, at from 76° to 77° ; from two to three o'clock at 86 ; and
at eight at night, at 79°. Jumbi is subject to the monsoons that blow south of the
equator, namely, the south-east and north-west, the same which blow in Java and the
seas which surround it. .
The bulk of the inhabitants of Jambi are genuine Malays, and besides those who
dwell on “ dry land,” there are, towards the embouchures of the river, some of those
Malays whose whole dwellings are their boats, the orang-lant, or “ men of the sea,” the
same people whose migrations extend even as far as the Moluccas. In the town are
to be found a few Javanese, and persons of Arabian descent. Formerly there were
some Chinese, and their abandonment of the country is, here as elsewhere, a sure
sign of anarchy. “ The lower orders,” says Mr. Crooke, “ are generally below the
middle size in stature ; but in shape, they are generally muscular and well-proportioned,
and their complexions are ordinarily fairer than those of the Malays commonly
seen at Prince of Wales Island. They are ignorant, poor, and indolent, but they have
neither incitement or means to be otherwise. They do not appear to possess the
character of vindictive treachery, so commonly ascribed to the Malays.^ Although the
country has, for two or three years, been in a state of civil war, few lives are said to
have fallen a sacrifice to this calamity, though the population has been reduced by the
numbers who have fled to other countries.”—page 403.
The history of Jambi is as obscure and uncertain as that of all other Malay countries.
It is enumerated as one of the twenty-nine states which, independent of those
of the interior, existed, according to De Barros, on the arrival of the Portuguese in the
Archipelago. Before the introduction of the Mahommedan religion, it is certain the
people professed some form of Hinduism. Mr. Crooke discovered near the town of
Jambi, and at the village of Muwara-jambi, mutilated Hindu images. Among these
were statues of the bull Nandi, the vehicle of Mahadewa, and of the elephant-headed
god Ganesa. These indicate the worship of Siva, or the Hindu destroyer, the most
frequent form of Hinduism in ancient Java. The images, however, were not of
trachyte, like all those of that island, but of a small-grained granite. This would
show that they were certainly not imported from Java ; and as neither granite nor
any other rock exists within the territory of Jambi, it is to be inferred that either
the images themselves, or tbe stone of which they were made, were brought from the
high lands of the interior, most probably from the most ,civilised portion of the
country, and the cradle, by its own account, of the Malayan people, Menangkabo.
Within three hours’ journey of the town, according to statements made to me by
natives of the country, there still stand the ruins of a Hindu temple, constructed of
brick similar to some of those found in the more easterly parts of Java.
The productions of Jambi are the same generally as those of the other parts of
Sumatra. Small quantities of gold are imported from the mountain region of the
interior, and, as before mentioned, its canes, jambees as they were called, were of such
reputation in England as to have added a new word to our language, still retained in
- our dictionaries. The trade is trifling. The Dutch, who claim a supremacy over the
country, lately established a port to protect it, at a place called Muwara-kompek,
forty-two miles below the town of Jambi, where, as the name imports, two branches
of the river rej oin, but it is liable to inundation in the season of the rains.
JAMBU. A generic Malay name for several kinds of fru it of different botanic
genera, but which is probably borrowed from the Jambu-kling, the Eugenia Malae-
censis of botanists. This is a fruit, with a rose-coloured cuticle, a spongy white flesh,
of an agreeable subacid taste, and about the size and shape of an ordinary pear. I t is
of considerable esteem for the table.
JANGGALA. The name of an ancient kingdom of Java, in the country of the
proper Javanese nation. Javanese authorities are not agreed as to the time when this
kingdom, of great reputation in Javanese story, flourished. One manuscript places it
in the year corresponding with that of Christ, 818, and another in 1082, the discrepancy
probably arising, however, from its rise being referred to in one case, and its
fall in the other. Its locality, or at least that of its capital, was the modern province
of Surabaya, a district of which, strewed with ancient relics, still retains the name.
JAPAN. In Malay and Javanese Jàpon, which is nearly our own old orthography,
Japon. The name is, no doubt, taken from that of the principal island in the
Japanese language, Nipon, and in Chinese Jipun, the corruptions being taken by the
natives of the Archipelago from the Portuguese. The Japanese empire is said to have
been discovered by the Portuguese, in 1542, and then only by the accident of a trading
junk, manned and owned by Portuguese, having been driven by a storm on its coast.
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