(Hist. of Ind.  Arch. III. 482; Valentyn, V. (Sumatra), p. 5; Desc.  Dict. p. 7, 417; Gildemeister, p. 193; Crawf.  Malay Dict. 119; J.  Ind.  Arch. V. 313.)

NOTE 3.—­The kingdom of PARLAK is mentioned in the Shijarat Malayu or Malay Chronicle, and also in a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei, of which an abstract is given by Dulaurier, in connection with the other states of which we shall speak presently.  It is also mentioned (Barlak), as a city of the Archipelago, by Rashiduddin.  Of its extent we have no knowledge, but the position (probably of its northern extremity) is preserved in the native name, Tanjong (i.e.  Cape) Parlak of the N.E. horn of Sumatra, called by European seamen “Diamond Point,” whilst the river and town of Perla, about 32 miles south of that point, indicate, I have little doubt, the site of the old capital.[1] Indeed in Malombra’s Ptolemy (Venice, 1574), I find the next city of Sumatra beyond Pacen marked as Pulaca.

The form Ferlec shows that Polo got it from the Arabs, who having no p often replace that letter by f.  It is notable that the Malay alphabet, which is that of the Arabic with necessary modifications, represents the sound p not by the Persian pe ([Arabic]), but by the Arabic fe ([Arabic]), with three dots instead of one ([Arabic]).

A Malay chronicle of Achin dates the accession of the first Mahomedan king of that state, the nearest point of Sumatra to India and Arabia, in the year answering to A.D. 1205, and this is the earliest conversion among the Malays on record.  It is doubtful, indeed, whether there were Kings of Achin in 1205, or for centuries after (unless indeed Lambri is to be regarded as Achin), but the introduction of Islam may be confidently assigned to that age.

The notice of the Hill-people, who lived like beasts and ate human flesh, presumably attaches to the Battas or Bataks, occupying high table-lands in the interior of Sumatra.  They do not now extend north beyond lat. 3 deg.  The interior of Northern Sumatra seems to remain a terra incognita, and even with the coast we are far less familiar than our ancestors were 250 years ago.  The Battas are remarkable among cannibal nations as having attained or retained some degree of civilisation, and as being possessed of an alphabet and documents.  Their anthropophagy is now professedly practised according to precise laws, and only in prescribed cases.  Thus:  (i) A commoner seducing a Raja’s wife must be eaten; (2) Enemies taken in battle outside their village must be eaten alive; those taken in storming a village may be spared; (3) Traitors and spies have the same doom, but may ransom themselves for 60 dollars a-head.  There is nothing more horrible or extraordinary in all the stories of mediaeval travellers than the facts of this institution. (See Junghuhn,