said to inhabit that high point, and whom be believed
we should certainly meet. But we gained the
summit without meeting any unearthly intruders.
There I found the whole bay and its shores spread
out before me like a map. The broad coral banks
bordering several of the points and islands were of a
lioht-clay color in the dark-blue water, which was
only here and there ruffled by the light morning
breezes then moving over its limpid surface. This
bay is said to closely resemble the bay of Rio Janeiro
by those who have seen both. To the north it has a
long arm, but on the south its boundary is sharply
defined when viewed from the lofty point where I
stood, while off the mouth of the bay was the high
island of Mensalla, its hills making a sharply-ser-
rated line against the sky.
On another occasion I made an excursion in a
boat some six miles toward the northern end of the
bay to look at some layers of coal. Leaving the
boat we went a short distance up the side of a range
of hills on the northwest side of the bay, and, crossing
two small ridges that ran down to the shore, found
the bed of a brook, which at that season was dry.
In one of its sides were seen the layers of coal, approximately
parallel to the surface of the hills, and
resting on clay schists, to which they appeared perfectly
conformable. Crossing another low ridge, we
came down into the bed of another brook, where the
same strata were again seen. The coal here is very
impure, except near the middle layers, and appears
to be of little commercial value; neither is the prospect
flattering for finding other strata of a better qualitv
beneath those seen at the surface. Although
I looked carefully, I could detect no leaves or stems
of plants, or any organic remains, by which the^geological
age of this coal could be determined; but the
position of the layers parallel to the surface, orlast
folding the strata have undergone, agrees with its
mineral characters in placing it, like the other coals
of Sumatra, in the tertiary period.
As I came to Siboga from the south, over the low
land around the bay, I noticed on my nght a high,
perpendicular cliff composed of recent strata that
were horizontal, and which must have been deposited
beneath the ocean, because the opposite side of the
valley is open to the sea, with only hills at intervals
along its shore, and even their forms^ indicate that
they are of the same sedimentary origin. This cffl
the natives call in Malay the R vm a Satan, or the
Devil’s Dwelling.” I t was on the western declivity
of the mountains which sweep round parallel to the
shore. The Resident gave orders to the rajah of bi-
buluan, a native village about four miles south o
Siboga, to go with me and show me the way. W hen
I came to that village I found the rajah was a young
man, and evidently afraid of such an undertaking.
In the first place, we must be exposed to the ccmmbal
Battas, and even travel among them; but I assured
him that that, so far from making me_ desire to turn
back, only made me the more anxious to go on,
for I liked to see all kinds of people, and I had no
fear that the Battas would eat me. Finding he
could not induce me to give up what he evidently
considered a most venturesome journey, he summoned