38 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is endowed with a style of Oriental beauty by no means unattrac- 

 tive or to be despised. Their despotic king never allows any of 

 his subjects to quit the country without his permission, and least 

 of all, women. The British and others living in Burmah have 

 not always had their eyes closed to the charms of the Burmese 

 girls, and when they have had children by them they have expe- 

 rienced difficulties of the most extraordinary nature upon leaving 

 the land in their attempts to take these and their mothers with 

 them. Often fabulous fees have had to be paid to effect their 

 removal. They are remarkably faithful to their masters, being 

 affectionate, industrious, and extremely domestic. Those having 

 these habits despise prostitution, for a prostitute among them is 

 an outcast, while they in their own calling are not dishonored. 

 In contrast with other parts of the East, the women of Burmah 

 go about openly, and are not excluded from the sight of the 

 men. They also have not a little to say in the community, even 

 being able, with the proof of cruel treatment, to plead in court 

 for a divorce, and this last, under such circumstances, is usually 

 obtained without difficulty. 



Leaving India now, and passing to the island of Sumatra, I 

 desire to introduce an entirely different race of people ; these are 

 the Battaks,* and they are of great interest to the anthropologist 

 from any point he may choose to consider them. Many books 

 and descriptions have appeared about the Battaks, dating back 

 before the middle of the present century. One writer tells us 

 that it " is not known whether they were settled in Sumatra be- 

 fore the Hindu period. Their language contains words of San- 

 skrit origin, and others most readily referred to Javanese, Malay, 

 Menangkabau, Macassar, Sundanese, Niasese, and Tagal influ- 

 ence." In 1866, when Prof. Albert S. Bickmore was traveling in 

 Sumatra, he saw not a little of these people, and he believed then 

 that the place where their aboriginal civilization sprang up was 

 very likely on the shores of that famous Sumatran lake, Lake 

 Toba, and upon the neighboring plateau of Silindong. From this 

 locality they gradually occupied an extensive domain in the in- 

 terior, which was extended upon either side to the seacoast. 

 Eventually, however, the Malays spread along the coast line, and 

 thus confined the Battaks once more to the interior. 



Nearly twenty years later, Webster wrote that they occupied 

 the country only to the southeast of Achin, the territory in the 

 middle of which Lake Toba is situated. From all that I can 

 gather upon the subject at the present time, it would appear that 

 this curious race, although they are distinctly different from the 

 typical Malay, these last-named people, together with the Achin 



* This word is also spelled " Batah " and " Batta." 



