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Upon the reduction of Malacca the governor received messages from several of the Sumatran princes, and amongst the rest from the king of a place called Kampar, on the eastern coast, who had married a daughter of the king of Malacca, but was on ill terms with his father-in-law. He desired to become a vassal of the Portuguese crown, and to have leave to reside under their jurisdiction.
From the place where it discharges itself into the straits of Kampar or Bencalis, to the town of Siak is, according to the scale of his chart, about sixty-five geographical miles, and from thence to a place called Pakan bharu or Newmarket, where the survey discontinues, is about one hundred more.
That of Kampar, to the southward, is said by the natives to labour under the same inconvenience, and Mr. Lynch was informed that the tides there rise from eighteen to twenty-four feet.
For this purpose he leagued himself with the king of Lingga, a neighbouring island, and sent out a fleet of seventy armed boats to block up the port of Kampar. By the valour of a small Portuguese armament this force was overcome in the river of that name, and the king conducted in triumph to Malacca, where he was invested in form with the important post he aspired to.
It is very generally eaten by the natives with their sirih or betel, and is supposed to have the property of cleansing and sweetening the mouth; for which reason it is also rubbed to the gums of infants. At Siak, Kampar, and Indragiri, on the eastern side of Sumatra, it is an important article of commerce.
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