P&rtibi is very different, and much of it marked by characters very singular in the
Malayan Archipelago. A considerable portion of it consists of a dreary, treeless, and
sterile plain, thus described by Mr. Wilier, an officer of the Dutch government- of
Java. ‘Here,’ says he, “ we see unrolled a plain without horizon and without
variety ; an unbounded carpet on which the more or less luxuriant growth of the
Lalang (Andropogon caricosum), a coarse worthless grass, a most troublesome
weed, and a sure sign of sterility, makes the only diversity, and on which not a single
living creature appears to move,—where a tree is literally a rarity, and when it exists
has an appearance of stunted dwarfishness ; where at the distance of miles we descry,
like an oasis in the desert, an insignificant thicket, or a small strip of brushwood,
along tn e banks of a marsh or stream ; where a fell scorching wind blows for months
together, and from the numerous conflagrations of lalang grass, generally spreads a
dull glow, through which the sunlight scarcely forces itself wavering and heavy ; in
short, where all nature seems to have gone to an eternal sleep. Such is the appear-
ance of Padang-luwas (wide or spacious plain), as of the greatest part of Pârtibi.
1 he naked and flat terrain of Padang-luwas offers no other diversity than the ravines
and morasses with which it is intersected. The upper soil is of the most meagre and
unfruitful kind, and is seldom more than half a foot in thickness : beneath it we
soon come to layers of white clay limestone, sandstone, and other formations. The
climate although not actually unhealthy is extremely rude. Frequently we have in
the afternoon a temperature of 27° to 29°, and in the night from 14° to 15° of
Reaumur. This heat is accompanied by a great dryness, which, however, for want of
instruments cannot be correctly ascertained. The Gendeng, which blows over
Probolingo in Java (a funnel-shaped pass at the eastern end of the island, of the same
character with the pass of Coimbatore in Southern India), can give but a faint idea of
the storm which for the greatest part of the year, day after day, bellows from the
west over Padang-luwas. Like the mistral, the wind has a strong desiccating power,
cracking the ground, and in a few minutes removing all traces of mud and rain.”
The Bataks are of the same brown-complexioned, lank-haired race as the rest of
the inhabitants of Sumatra. They are divided into many independent states, and in
1822 Mr. Anderson reckoned on the eastern side of Sumatra alone, no fewer than five-
and-twenty, of which he gives the several names. The Dutch represent the
inhabitants of the districts subject to them as a patient, truthful, laborious, and not
unfrequently a parsimonious people ; their chief vice being a passion for gambling.
They understand the smelting and forging of iron, the growth of rice by irrigation,
the culture, the weaving, and the dyeing of cotton, and have domesticated the ox,
buffalo, horse, and hog. But they have gone much beyond all this, for they have
invented alphabetic writing, having a peculiar character of their own, and a rude
literature written on palm leaves or slips of bamboo. Thus advanced, the most
remarkable circumstance connected with the manners of the Bataks is their
undoubted practice of cannibalism, a fact now as well ascertained as it is of the New
Zealanders. The victims are enemies, criminals, and now and then a slave. The
skulls are preserved as trophies, or sold at a handsome price to the friends of the
victimised. “ I am fully justified then,” says Mr. Anderson, “ not only from what I
witnessed, and the proofs now in my possession, but from the concurring testimony
of the most respectable and intelligent natives whom I met, in asserting that
cannibalism prevails, even to a greater extent on the east side of Sumatra than
according to the accounts received it does on the west. For the sake of humanity,
however, be it mentioned that it is rapidly decreasing, as civilisation and commerce
are advancing. It is not for the sake of food that the natives devour human flesh,
but to gratify their malignant and demon-like feelings of animosity against their
enemies.” Recent Dutch writers in like manner testify to the cannibalism of the
Bataks, stating at the same time that those, subject to the Dutch authority, are
readily dissuaded from it. The cannibalism of this people Beems early to have been
known to the Portuguese, for De Barros, speaking of. the natives of the interior of
Sumatra, says, “ This was the race called Batas, who eat human flesh, the most fierce
and warlike people of all the land.”—Decade 3, book v.
The Bataks have no consistent system of religious belief, but an abundance of
superstitions, such as belief in evil spirits, omens, and the like. Slight traces of
Hinduism are discernible in their language. Thus their astrologers are called guru,
the Sanscrit for a “ spiritual guide ; ” and the main object of their worship is thé
Batara-guru of the Javanese, that is, avatara guru, which would signify “ descended
spiritual guide,” that is, “ heaven-descended guide.” The burning, instead of interring
the dead, concremation, division of castes, and the other prominent practices
of Hinduism are unknown to the Bntaks It is indeed o u v i o u s that no
religion of the is not íliWlereni^riíever
have existed among a p ^ p other nations of Sumatra, possessed of a
able of the Bataks, t adopted the Mahommedan religion, they have sturdily
r e l e l d it for ceïiniri’e s ^ ^ g S m ) ^ ^ W d t o ° X ^ T e t area of about
small as it is, is probably th e u tm o st
0f The strange civilisation of th e Bataks, one of le tte re d cannibalism, was most probablv
f i r s t d e v e l o p e d in the table-land of the interior, called in the maps the Plateau
of Tobah probablyof Tuba, the name of a plant used for poisoning fish a species
of the Batak nation is not unlikely to have been first developed. That it^spread t o
one centre seems probable from the fact of one language, with dialectic variations only,
being spoken throughout by the whole Balak nation.
BATAM One of the largest o'f the many islands a t the eastern end of the
Sttaits of Malacca, and which seem almost to block up the channel between Sumatra
a n ï the peninsula. I t lies opposite to Singapore, and with the larger island of
Bintang foims the southern side of the Straits of Singapore, the common route to
» d it, geologic^ t ó g f like .!» ;
of the neighbouring countries, plutonio and sedimentary The land is poor and Sratie cultwated. The ruling inhabitants are Malays, but it has also a rude tribe
unconverted to Mahommedanism, called Sabimba. It belongs to the prmce of Jehor,
under the usual superiority of the Dutch.
BATAN and BATANES. Batan is the name of the island of the Bashee group
which Dampier called Grafton ; and Batanes, its Spanish I^ ra l, isi^the name given y
., a +r> tho whole This group lies between north latitude iu 07 ou , ana ■ i «o >’• r s SÆ X ; 5 about 31 leagues in length, and has two ports or roads, one of them, the tfay oi
Ibava on th eV o r e of which is the town of San José, the chief place of the whole
group as also of the Babuyanes Islands. The other larger islands are Basay, Saptsm,
Hugos and Itabayat; but besides these there are half-a-dozen more which are uninhabited
The Batanes and Babuyanes Islands form together one Alcaldía, their united
population amounting to no more than 8000, and so poor that they are not called
o X mv the poll-tax The chief branch of industry in the prmcpal islands seems
i .vT u V»r*v«pq of ft race crea/tlv esteemed in Manilla, but wbicb it
h° s been found impossible to multiply in the more fertile island of Buzon, although
the experiment has been often tried. Hogs and goats are in great abundance. The
inhabitants of the Bashee Islands seem to belong to the Malayan race, but have a
p e c íia r language of their own. Dampier’s description of their personal appearance
Fs so truthfuF and perfect, that although written more than a century and a hahago
it is worth quoting. “ The natives of these islands are short, squat people, they
are eeiFerallv TOund-visaged, with low foreheads and thick eyebrows ; their eyes are
ofahazefcolourFmd small, yet bigger than the Chinese; andthem
lips and mouths middle-proportioned. 1Their teeth are white then han■ ui black
and thick and lank, which they wear but short; it will just cover their earn, ¡rnd
it is cut round very even. Their skins are of a very dark copper colour. This
unquestionably the true Malay.
BATANGAS, sometimes called BALAYAN, and also the province % L ^ p e n
Taal, one of the twenty provinces of the island of Luzon. Batang P