English: Watercolour from c. 1785 showing the British settlement of Tapanuli on the small island of Punchong Cacheel inside the vast Bay of Tapanuli (today, also called Sibolga Bay). Tapanuli (then spelled Tappanooly) was the northermost of the string of settlements that were part of British Bencoolen.

The painter is Elisha Trapaud, soldier, surveyor, draughtsman and amateur actor who joined East India Company 1776 and took part in an expedition to survey Sumatra between 1783 and 1785. In 1788 he published a book of 20 uncoloured aquatints, including another view of Tapanuli.

[Tappanooly] is on a small island, called Punchong cacheel, in the famous bay of Tappanooly, which is not surpassed, for natural advantages, in many parts of the world. Navigators say that all the navies of Europe might ride there with perfect security, in every weather. (William Marsden, The History of Sumatra, 1783).