ANDERSON, John.

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Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra. First edition, with the signature of Philip Carteret Silvester to the title page. Anderson visited Sumatra as a functionary of the East India Company and his account includes a description of the Batak tribe, whose ritual cannibalism was recounted by Marco Polo.John Anderson (1795-1845) was first posted to Penang in 1813 as a civil servant. "In January 1823 he was dispatched on a three-month mission to the east coast of Sumatra with instructions to promise protection to the Sumatran chiefs and to discourage them from entering trading agreements with the Dutch. Distributing gifts of European chintzes and Indian muslins, Anderson was well received along the coast, and, ignoring his orders to abstain from formal political negotiations, agreed new or reinvigorated treaties with the sultans of Deli and Siak and the rajas of Serdang and Langkat, which the court of directors subsequently ruled invalid" (ODNB).

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