PADANG SIDEMPUAN. 423 



Chinese themselves. After these shallow pools have 

 been used for this purpose a year or two, the fish 

 are taken out, the larger ones sent to market, and 

 the smaller ones transferred to another pond. The 

 water in the first pool is then drained off, and its 

 bottom becomes a fruitful rice-field. In this manner 

 the natives allow their land to lie fallow, and at the 

 same time make it yield a good crop. 



March Uli. — At 6 a. m., started from Kau for Pa- 

 dang Sidempuan, at the northern end of this valley, 

 Avhich begins on the south at Marisipongi, where we 

 first saw the Battas. All day our route has been in the 

 bottom of the valley, at a general elevation of one thou- 

 sand feet. Sometimes we passed over gentle undula- 

 tions, but usually over one monotonous level area 

 covered wdth tall grass, in which were interspersed 

 large clumps of shi'ubbery. In one village there 

 were two most enonnous waringin-trees, under which 

 the villagers had prepared a rade table. On this 

 they had spread young cocoa-nuts, and bananas, aj:)- 

 parently the only kinds of fruit they had to ofter. 



As we advanced, the mountains on oui* right 

 dwindled until they formed hills, whose tops were 

 only five or six hundred feet above the plateau in 

 which we were travellino;. Before us rose another 

 gi-eat transverse ridge, in which towered up the peak 

 of Lubu Rajah to a height of over six thousand two 

 hundred feet above the sea. It is the higliest moun- 

 tain in the Batta Lands, as the Dutch call the higli 

 plateaus of Siliudong and Toba which lie north of 

 tliis transverse ridge, and are beyond the limits of the 

 territory subject to the government of the Nether- 



