small stream, and, ten miles in a southwesterly direction,
we came to the Resident’s house at Fort Van
der Capellen. The more direct and frequented road
between Pay a Kombo and this place lies between
Mount Sago and Mount Merapi; and those two great
elevations are so separate that Tangjong Allam, the
highest point on the road, is only three thousand
four hundred feet, about two hundred feet above
Fort de Kock. Four miles beyond, we passed
through a village where there is o o a waring'in-tree of
enormous dimensions. Its trunk is so large that I
found it required eight natives to embrace it by
joining hands ! It is not, however, a single, compact
trunk, like that of a pine, but is composed of an
irregular bundle of them bound together. Besides
this, there are three other great trunks which support
the larger limbs, this species of Ficus being very
closely allied to the banyan-tree of India.
Two miles west of this place, on the acclivity of
one of the limestone ranges already described, lies
Pagaruyong, now a small kampong, but in ancient
times one of the capitals of the great Malay kingdom
of Menangkabau. Its early history only comes down
to us in obscure legends. One is that Vo ah and his
“ forty companions ” in the ark discovered dry land
at Lankapura, near the present city of Palembang,
by seeing a bird which had escaped from their vessel
alight at that place. From that spot two brothers,
Papati-si-batang (a name of Sanscrit origin), and
Kayi Tumangung (a name of Javanese origin), who
were included in the forty that had escaped the deluge,
came to a mountain named Siguntang-guntang,
which was described as dividing Palembang from
Jambi, and thence to Priangan, a word in Javanese
signifying “ the land of wood-spirits,” or fairies, and
at present the name of a kampong on the road from
this place to Padang Panjang, and situated on the
flanks of the M6rapi, near the wooded region. There
is little doubt that this kampong is the same as^ the
ancient one of the same name, for that was described
as being 11 near the great volcano. ;
Another legend represents the founder of the
Menangkabau empire to have been Sang Sapurba (a
name compounded of both Sanscrit and Javanese
words), who is also said to have come from Palembang,
which we know was a Javanese colony. The
Javanese and Sanscrit origins of these names at once
suggest the probability that a larger part of the
civilization which rendered this empire so superior
to all others in Sumatra, was not indigenous, but
introduced from Java, and at a period subsequent to
the introduction into that island of Hinduism and
its accompanying Sanscrit names from India. The
names of many of the most remarkable mountains
and localities in this region are also found to be of
similar origin, and greatly strengthen this probability.
The word Menangkabau itself signifies in Javanese
“ the victory of the buffalo; ” and, as it has
been one of the favorite sports of the Javanese from
time immemorial to make buffaloes fight with tigers,
we may presume this locality acquired its name from
its being the frequent scene of such a bloody pastime.
When Europeans first arrived on the northern