IN SUMATRA. 191 



and the Blalau districts, which I had just traversed— high 

 phiteaiis with which communication is difficult— the people 

 still followed the pagan superstitions of past ages, and con- 

 tinued the customs and rites of their great-n:reat forefathers 



with little change. 



Passing through the village of Darma, Avhcre I noted with 

 curiosity the skulls of divers species of animals nailed to the 

 gable end of a house, which pertained, I was informed, to its 

 Pangeran's T uTcmig -linatang , or gamekeeper — a fact I miglit 

 have guessed without asking (had I imao^incd tliat Pano-erans 

 had among their retinue such an official), since I was myself 

 an inhabitant of a land where his professional brother hangs 

 out as marks of his prowess a signboard just as barbarously 

 garnished with the bodies of owls and hawks, weasels and 

 inoffensive little squirrels, and every rare feathered bird that 

 visits his neighbourhood. 



I halted for the night at Muara Tnim, a larjje villaire at 

 the confluence of the Inim with the Lamatang and one of the 

 important centres of commerce and civilisation in the Resi- 

 dency. Once a week a small steamer comes here — 120 miles 

 from the coast — bringing mails and passengers and all tlie 

 merchandise for the north-western Highlands of Palembang. 

 It is the starting-point of the main cross-country road to 

 Bencoolen and Padan^:, which after crossinof the Inim ascends 

 the western bank of the Lamatane: throujjh a rather monoto- 



o ^"O 



nous strip of country, which I beguiled by examining the coal 

 bands (of Pliocene age) that crop out at various points in the 

 clayey marls on the roadside. Suddenly turning the corner 

 near the village of Merapi, the traveller comes face to face 

 with one of the most singular and picturesque mountains of 

 Sumatra — the Cerillo Peak — which, though high, is, owing 



to the confioruration of the countrv, not seen till one is close 

 at its base. 



The Cerillo is a tall conic?d mountain on a somewhat nar- 

 row base, rising irregularly till about 800 or 1000 feet from its 

 summit, when it suddenly contracts into an inaccessible acute 

 spire, like a gigantic finger pointing heavenward. I was not 

 surprised to be told that among an ignorant people its singular 

 shape had invested it with superstitious dread. The natives 

 make long pilgrimages to it to speak with the Dewa that they 



