434 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



terior, but the natives failed to secure so valuable a 

 prize. Herds of tliem are said to frequently appear 

 in the Siliudong plateau. The tusks of one taken 

 here lately were sold for one thousand guilders (four 

 hundred Mexican dollars). On our way we passed 

 eight or ten houses of Battas, who had come down 

 from the mountains. They were placed on posts 

 like those we have been seeing ; but the gable-ends, 

 instead of being perpendicular, slant outward, so that 

 the ridge-pole, which comes up high at each end, is 

 much longer than the floor. Over a number of these 

 streams we found long suspension bridges, but none 

 were high as that over the Batang Taroh. Ascend- 

 ing to the crest of a mountain-range, some six or 

 eight hundred feet in height, we found before us a 

 grand view of the high mountains, stretching in a 

 semicircle around the bay of Tapanuli; of the low 

 land at their feet, and of a part of the bay itself A 

 steep, zigzag way took us down nearly to the level 

 of the sea, and led us over the low land to the vil- 

 lage of Siboga, a small Dutch settlement and mili- 

 tary station at the head of the bay. 



