442 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



rocks, while the lightning flashed in broad sheets and 

 the thunders echoed and reechoed in the deep ravine. 

 The Malays who formed my guard then began to 

 discuss in an undertone, without thinking that I over- 

 heard them, whether the Evil Spirit would not, after 

 all, bring some dreadful misfortune on the white 

 gentleman for daring to visit his abode. One sug- 

 gested that the Battas might yet capture him on one 

 of his dangerous excursions. Another said he would 

 probably have an attack of fever (which I confess I 

 myself considered probable), for after such exposure 

 to the hot sun, and such a drenching, any man, even 

 a native, is likely to find a keen burning in his veins 

 the next morning. The rajah, however, replied to 

 these unfavorable suggestions, that Tuan Allah would 

 take pity on him, and not allow even the rain to 

 harm him, for he was a good man, and it could not 

 be very wicked in any one simply to go and see 

 where the Evil Spirit lived. My feet and ankles had 

 become so bruised from treadins: on the rouo;h rocks 

 in the bed of the torrent, and so cut from walking 

 through the tall grass, that as soon as I reached my 

 room I went to bed, and did not rise for thirty 

 hours ; but the rajah's predictions proved true, and 

 I escaped without even an attack of fever. 



A few days afterward, a rajah came from his vil- 

 lage on the coast near Barus, or Barros, a small port 

 about thirty miles toward Achin. He said that 

 some neio-hborino; Battas had taken two of his men, 

 and had ali'eady eaten one of them, and were keeping 

 the other to eat him also, and that he came to Siboga 

 to ask the Besident that soldiers be sent to compel 



