SIR THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES. 47 



writes Sir Stamford, " I was prepared to find a coun- 

 try still more fertile and populous than the fertile 

 valley of Passumah. The whole occupied by the 

 Tigas-blas-cotas, or thirteen confederate towns, is 

 one sheet of cultivation, in breadth about ten, in 

 length twenty miles, thickly studded with towns 

 and villages. On the slopes of the hills, the principal 

 cultivation is coffee, indigo, maize, sugar-cane, and 

 oil-giving plants ; on the plain below, exclusively rice. 

 A fine breed of small cattle, which seems peculiar, 

 abounds here, and throughout the Menangkabu coun- 

 try ; oxen seem generally used in agriculture, in pre- 

 ference to buffaloes ; they are in general about three 

 feet four inches high, beautifully made, and mostly o' 

 a light fawn colour, with black eyes and lashes, and 

 are sold at from three to four dollars a head. They 

 are, without exception, the most beautiful little ani- 

 mals of the kind I ever beheld ; we did not see one 

 in bad condition. Horses, of which there seems to 

 be plenty, are not much used. Fora mare and foal, 

 the price was about twenty shillings." 



Thus they travelled on through a country little 

 known to Europeans, of the most important and in- 

 teresting description, full of interest to the antiquary 

 and naturalist, the classic ground of the Malays. 

 On the night of the 21st, they reached the banks of 

 Danau, or lake of Sincara, a beautiful sheet of wa- 

 ter about fourteen miles long, and seven broad, sur- 

 rounded with mountains and hills, highly cultivated 

 at the bases, and open only towards the Tiga-blas 



