424 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



lands India. Soon after we arrived, tlie controleur re- 

 ceived a letter from a Batta chief. It was notliino; 

 but a piece of young bamboo a couple of inches in 

 diameter and about six inches long. On this had 

 been scratched, with a blunt needle, characters of 

 various shapes, quite intricate, but not having by 

 any means the barbarous appearance of those used 

 by the Chinese. The object of this letter was to in- 

 form the controleur that during a recent rain a bridge 

 near the rajah's village had been washed away. Un- 

 like the Chinese language, where every character is a 

 word, the Batta is an alphabetic language, and one 

 of their own invention. As spoken by the various 

 branches of this tribe it differs only to the degree of 

 dialects, and the language is, therefore, a unit. The 

 religion of this people is a belief in evil spirits and 

 omens. The place where their aboriginal civilization 

 sprang up was probably in the neighboring j)lateau 

 of Silindong and on the borders of Lake Toba. 

 Thence they seem to have spread over all the area 

 they now occupy in the interior and to the sea-coast 

 on either side. In later tunes the j^eople of Menang- 

 kabau, or Malays proper, extended their power along 

 the coast and made the Battas an inland people. 



The strangest fact concerning this people, who 

 have come to such a state of civilization as to invent 

 an alphabet of their own, is, that all of them, be- 

 yond the territory under the Dutch Government, are 

 cannibals. Those living on this j)lain also feasted on 

 human flesh until the Dutch conquered them, and 

 obliged them to give up such a fiendish custom. 

 The rajah of Sipirok assured the governor at Padang 



