that this place is called Lubu Sikeping. They now
build houses like those of other Malays. They are
better-formed people than the Javanese, and closely
resemble in their features the Oranglaut, or common
Malays of the coast regions. Their favorite holiday-
dress is chiefly a bright scarlet. Half an hour after
I arrived here the inspector came. He had found the
road so narrow in one or two places that the natives
had to push out planks beyond the outer edge of the
road to support the outside wheels of the carriage,
and I was glad that I came on horseback, though,
when I led the vicious brute, I had to keep a constant
watch to prevent him from seizing my wrist in his
teeth.
At 5 p. m. we walked out to enjoy the grand
scenery in the vicinity. The level plateau here, which
is one thousand five hundred feet above the sea, is
bounded on the northeast side by an exceedingly
steep, almost overhanging range of mountains, whose
several crests appear to be five thousand feet above
us. I t was one of the most imposing sights I witnessed
on that island of high mountains. Mount
Ophir is just west of this place, and at sunset we
saw it through a gap in the mountains near us, resting
its lofty purple summit against the golden sky.
February 28 th.—I find it much more agreeable to
ride on horseback-most of the time, because I can stop
or turn round when I please, and the opziener has
therefore given me a horse to go the next ten paals.
For all that distance the scenery was much like'that
described last night, except that the valley kept widening
as we progressed northward, and, therefore, the
mountains, being farther from us, were not so imposing.
When we had come to the limit of the overseer’s
territory, another living in the next district met us and
travelled with us to his little house, where we dined
on venison while he entertained us with tiger-stories.
Only a few days before we arrived he had seen a
tiger in the road, but little more than a rifle-shot from
his house; and, indeed, the deer that supplied the
venison we were eating had been shot in his own garden,
where it had evidently been chased by one of
those ferocious beasts. At the opziener’s houses there
is a regular price for every thing furnished, and you
order what you please, though one can seldom feast
on venison, and must generally satisfy his hunger on
chickens and eggs, and, to receive both of these different
articles, he needs only to order the latter. In the
houses of all officials of a higher rank than opzieners
it would be considered no less than an insult to
offer to pay for your lodging. From this place I
rode with the inspector a distance of twenty-five
miles to Rau, the chief village in this valley. We
had not gone far before we came into herds of buffaloes,
which are more than half-wild and said to be
very dangerous, but the natives that accompanied us
kept up a loud shouting, and the herd leaped to the
right and left into the jungle and tall grass, and allowed
us to pass on unmolested. The people here
sometimes shoot them, but consider it a most dangerous
kind of sport, for they say that when one is
wounded, but not fatally, he will certainly turn and
pursue the hunter, and, if he can overtake him, will
quickly gore him to death.