because it is the staple article of food among their
neighbors. They are yet slaves to their rajah, just
as the people of all the tribes in this vicinity were
before they were conquered by the Dutch, for the
Lubus, so far as we know, remain as they were in the
most ancient times. Here I enjoyed a magnificent
view of the active volcano Seret M6rapi, the summit
of which is five thousand nine hundred feet above the
sea. It is not a separate mountain like the Merapi
of the Menangkabau country, but merely a peak in
the Barizan chain. From its top a jet of opaque gas
rose into the clear, blue sky, while small cumuli came
up behind the coast-chain from the ocean, and seemed
to settle on its highest summits, as if weary, and wishing
to rest, before they continued their endless flight
through the sky.
When we again came to the bottom of the valley,
we found what seemed to us a wonder—a smooth,
well-evaded road, bordered on O ' either side with a row
of beautiful shade-trees. All the low land in this
vicinity is used for sawas, and the rice, which was
mostly two-thirds grown, waved most charmingly in
the liOg ht wind,' that reminded me of our summerbreezes.
The inspector, who was an old gentleman,
felt somewhat worn out with such incessant jolting,
and, as I had been travelling without stopping for
eight days, I was only too glad to have one day of
rest also.
At sunset, as is always the custom in these tropical
lands, we took an evening walk. The many fires
now raging in the tall grass that covers the lower
flanks of the mountains have so filled the air with
smoke, that when the sun had sunk behind the serrated
crest of the Barizan, the whole horizon for
twenty degrees and to a considerable height was
lighted up with one unvarying golden glow. Here
the Barizan is composed of four or five parallel
ranges, which rise successively one above the other
until the last forms thè highest elevation in that
chain. These different ranges were of various shades
of color ; that the nearest to us, or the lowest, being
the darkest, and those above it of a lighter and
lighter hue up to the highest range, which had a
bright border of gold along its crest ; and from that
line to where we stood the air seemed filled with a
purple dust. As the daylight faded, the fires in the
tall grass on the hill-sides became more distinct;
sometimes advancing in a broad, continuous band,
and sometimes breaking up into an irregular, beaded
line. Soon afterward the moon rose as charmingly
in the east as the sun just gloriously set in the west.
First a diffuse light appeared along the mountain-
tops and whitened the fleecy cumuli hovering over
their summits. Then that part of the sky grew
brighter and brighter until the light of the full moon
fell like a silver cascade over the serrated edge of the
high mountains and rested on the tops of the hills
below. An assistant resident is stationed here at
Fort Elout, who has charge of this fruitful valley of
Mandeling, which is wholly inhabited by the Battas.
The territory between this valley and the west coast
is also inhabited by this rude people. The Resident
explained to us the trouble taken by the government
and the expense it was incurring, in order to teach