The independent states are Sumbawa proper, Dompo, Sangar and Bima.
Two other states on the northern extremity of the island were so far devastated by the Tambora eruption of 1815 that their territory, after lying for long uninhabited, was in 1866 divided between Dompo and Sangar.
Sangar occupies the north-western promontory of the island, and Bima the extreme east.
Not the least extraordinary feature of the battle that followed is the part played by a sangar of stones at the head of Quarry Ravine and a small battery, called the Sandbag Battery, made as a temporary emplacement for two heavy guns a few days before.
The sangar at first fell into the hands of the Russians, but they were soon ejected, and small British detachments reoccupied and held it, while the various Russian attacks flowed up and past it and ebbed back into the Quarry Ravine.