PADANG, the chief port on the west coast of Sumatra and capital of the residency of the west coast of Sumatra, Dutch East Indies, population 52,054 (2,592 Europeans and Eurasians). Padang, which is 572 miles from Batavia, has prospered exceed ingly since the opening-up of the Padang highlands with their great mineral wealth, tourist traffic, and the general extension of cultivation in Sumatra West Coast residency, aided by the construction of a railway along the coast to Sungei Limau and inland to Fort de Kock and Pajo Kumbu, and, branching off from Padang Panjang, to Sawah Lunto, and the harbour facilities of Emma Harbour. The town, which is the seat of the resident, and the headquarters of the railway, with offices, workshops, etc., and is overlooked by the Apenberg or Ape mountain, right on the coast, is beautifully laid out, with fine, well-kept roads •and houses surrounded by large gardens. Many of the native houses are built on piles, and have thatched roofs, and, despite its modern buildings, Padang still possesses a rustic charm, and it has a cooler climate than most coastal towns so near the equator. The port, which is approached from the sea through a multitude of tiny evergreen islets, lies a short distance south-east of the town, on the north-west side of Koninginne bay (Queen's bay), and from it are exported copra, coffee, quinine, mace, damar, hides, rattans, and coal from the great Ombilin coal-fields which, in 1925, produced 543,745 tons. Emma Harbour, constructed between 188o-189o, has two breakwaters, one goo metres long, projecting at right angles to the coast ; the other, 260 metres, running parallel with the coast across a coral bank: these give a harbour surface of one square kilometre. There are four
wharves, with a total length of 433 metres, for general cargo, also a special coal wharf, and salt, petroleum and dynamite wharves. The coal wharf has a shute with a capacity of 30o tons per hour, two electric conveyers of 120 tons per hour, and a floating con veyer. Emma Harbour affords very frequent communication be tween Sumatra West Coast and Java and British Malayan ports, and it is a port of call for steamers from Europe, Australia, China, India and Japan. Imports in 1926 were 22,563,046, and exports 27,289,775 gulders. Padang is one of the oldest Dutch settle ments in Sumatra. As early as 1606 an official of the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (United Dutch East India Company), was sent from Batavia with orders to appoint residents on the west coast of Sumatra and to found factories there, and Padang seems to have been one of the earliest of these, for in 1664 it was styled the capital of Sumatra's West Coast, and three years later a small fort and some warehouses were erected on the banks of the Padang river, to support the resident and his small staff in their tenure. The fortress was demolished by the British in 1793, and was found still in ruins when Padang was paid a visit, later in the same year, by the French buccaneer Lemesme, in his vessel "La Ville de Bordeaux." In November 1795 Padang and the west coast of Sumatra were captured by a British force, and a garrison, reinforced from Bencoolen, was maintained at Padang, the town and the district remaining under British control until May, 1819.