334 . Batchian. 



uiy two raen immediately to buy " ataps" (palm-leaf thatch) to 

 repair the roof, and the next day, with the assistance of eight 

 of the Sultan's men, got all my stores and furniture carried up 

 and pretty comfortably arranged. A rough bamboo bedstead 

 was soon constructed, and a table made of boards, which I 

 had brought with me, fixed under the window. Two bamboo 

 chairs, an easy cane chair, and hanging shelves suspended 

 with insulating oil-cups, so as to be safe from ants, completed 

 my furnishing arrangements. 



In the afternoon succeeding my ari'ival the secretary ac- 

 companied me to visit the Sultan, We were kept waiting a 

 few minutes in an outer gate-house, and then ushered to the 

 door of a rude, half-fortified whitewashed house. A small ta- 

 ble and three chairs were placed in a large outer corridor, and 

 an old dirty-faced man with gray hair and a grimy beard, 

 dressed in a speckled bhae cotton jacket and loose red trowsers, 

 came forward, shook hands, and asked me to be seated. Aft- 

 er a quarter of an hour's conversation on my pursuits, in which 

 his Majesty seemed to take great interest, tea and cakes — of 

 rather better quality than usual on such occasions — were 

 brought in. I thanked him for the house and offered to show 

 him my collections, which he promised to come and look at. 

 He then asked me to teach him to take views — to make maps 

 — to get him a small gun from England, and a milch-goat 

 from Bengal ; all of which requests I evaded as skillfixlly as I 

 was able, and we parted very good friends. He seemed a 

 sensible old man, and lamented the small population of the isl- 

 and, which he assured me was rich in many valuable minei'als, 

 including gold, but there were not people enough to look aft- 

 er them and work them. I described to him the great rush of 

 population on the discoverj^ of the Australian gold-mines, and 

 the huge nuggets found there, with which he was much inter- 

 ested, and exclaimed, " Oh ! if we had but people like that my 

 country would be quite as ricli !" 



The morning after I had got into my new house I sent my 

 boys out to shoot, and went myself to explore the road to the 

 coal-mines. In less than half a mile it entered the virgin for- 

 est at a place where some magnificent trees formed a kind of 

 natural avenue. The first part was flat and swampy, but it 

 soon rose a little, and ran alongside the fine stream which 



