rocks, while the lightning flashed in hroad sheets and
the thunders echoed and reechoed in the deep ravine.
The Malays who formed my guard then began to
discuss in an undertone, without thinking that I overheard
them, whether the Evil Spirit would not, after
all, bring some dreadful misfortune on the white
gentleman for daring to visit his abode. One suggested
that the Battas might yet capture him on one
of his dangerous excursions. Another said he would
probably have an attack of fever (which I confess I
myself considered probable), for after such exposure
to the hot sun, and such a drenching, any man, even
a native, is likely to find a keen burning in his veins
the next morning. The rajah, however, replied to
these unfavorable suggestions, that Tuan Allah would
take pity on him, and not allow even the rain to
harm him, for he was a good man, and it could not
be very wicked in any one simply to go and see
where the Evil Spirit lived. My feet and ankles had
become so bruised from treading on the rough rocks
in the bed of the torrent, and so cut from walking
through the tall grass, that as soon as I reached my
room I went to bed, and did not rise for thirty
hours; but the rajah’s predictions proved true, and
I escaped without even an attack of fever.
A few days afterward, a rajah came from his village
on the coast near Barus, or Barros, a small port
about thirty miles toward Achin. He said that
some neighboring Battas had taken two of his men,
and had already GcttGn one of them, and were keeping
the other to eat him also, and that he came to Siboga
to ask the Resident that soldiers be sent to compel
those cannibals to deliver up their intended victim.
Such a request, of course, it was not possible for the
Resident to grant, however much he might wish to
do so, for the whole country is extremely mountainous,
and covered with a dense, impenetrable forest;"
and the moment these Battas have finished their attack,
they instantly retreat into the interior without
allowing the Dutch the possibility of punishing
them, except by subjugating the entire country, and
that would be a work of the greatest difficulty, and
one that would require much time, and money, and
bring no adequate recompense. It is such a common
thing for the foreigners here at Siboga to hear that
one or more natives have been eaten in the neioo-hboring
mountains, that no one thinks of speaking of
it as any thing strange or even incredible. In the
Silindong valley two missionaries have been living
for some time, trying to educate and convert the
Battas. I met one of them with his bride at the
governor’s residence when I arrived at Padang. The
lady had arrived but a short time before from Holland,
and they were just then starting on their wedding
tour to their future residence among the cannibals.
The other missionary is now at this village,
and I have just been present at his wedding. His
wife is a young lady of not more than seventeen
summers, and what is stranger than all in both of
these matches is, that neither of these gentlemen
had seen his betrothed before she arrived, except in
a miniature, which of course might or might not be
a good likeness. It may relieve the curious for me
to state that all parties are entirely satisfied.