SUMBAWA (properly Sambawa or Samawa), an island of the East Indian Archipelago, one of the Sunda group, lies between 8° 6' and 9° 3' S. lat. and 116° 47' and 119° 12' E. long., to the east of Lombok, from which it is separated by the narrow Allas strait. Its area is estimated at 5186 square miles. The population was computed to number about 150,000 in 1887. The deep Bay of Salee or Sumbawa on the north divides the island into two peninsulas, and the isthmus is further reduced by the narrower Bay of Tjempi (Chempi) entering from the south. The eastern peninsula is deeply indented by the Bay of Bima. The whole surface of Sumbawa is mountainous: G. Ny-enges, in the western peninsula, is 5560 feet high, and G. Tambora, in the eastern, which is said to have lost a third of its elevation in the eruption of 1815, is still 8697 feet high. There are no navigable streams. The climate and productions are not unlike those of Java, though the rains are heavier, the drought more severe, and the fertility less. Sulphur, arsenic, asphalt, and petroleum are the mineral products. Mohammedanism prevails throughout the island, except among certain mountain tribes....
Sumbawa is divided into four independent states,—Sumbawa proper, Dompo, Sangar, and Bima. Two other states on the northern extremity of the island were so devastated by the Tambora eruption of 1815 that their territory, after lying for long uninhabited, was in 1866 divided between Dompo and Sangar. Sumbawa proper occupies the western peninsula. The residence of the sultan is Sumbawa, 2 miles from the coast of the great bay, in 8° 32' S. lat. and 117° 20' 33" E. long. It is surrounded with palisade and ditches. The inhabitants of this state employ sometimes the Malay and sometimes the Macassar character in writing. A considerable trade is carried on in the export of horses, buffaloes, goats, dinding (dried flesh), skins, birds’ nests, wax, rice, katjang, sappanwood, &c. Sumbawa entered into treaty relations with the Dutch East India Company in 1674. Dompo is the western half of the eastern peninsula. The capital of the state, Dompo, lies in the heart of the country, on a stream that falls into Tjempi Bay. Bada, the sultan’s residence, is farther west. Sangar occupies the north-western promontory of the island, and Bima the extreme east. Bima or Bodjo, the chief town of the latter state, lies on the east side of the Bay of Bima; it has a stone-walled palace and a mosque, as well as a Dutch fort. The population of Bima is curiously divided into twelve guilds or castes (dari). In the town is a Government Christian school dating from 1874.
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