478 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



While at this villao-e I noticed a native leadins; a 

 large dog-like monkey from place to place. On in- 

 quiring, the servants told me that he was trained to 

 pick off cocoa-nuts from the bunches in the trees, but 

 I doubted whether he could know what ones to se- 

 lect, and therefore watched him myself. His master 

 brought him to the foot of the tree, gave a peculiar 

 jerk to the rope, and at once he began to climb up. 

 Reaching the top, he seated himself on the base of a 

 leaf and immediately began wrenching off those nuts 

 that were fully gro^vn, by partially twisting them. 

 After he had taken off" all the ripe nuts on one side 

 of the tree, he went round to the opposite side and 

 broke off the ripe ones there also, without once at- 

 tempting to pull off those that were partly grown. 

 This selecting the ripe nuts from the large clus- 

 ters seemed to be the result of his own instinct, and 

 not of any signal fi'om his master, so far as I could 

 detect. 



The shore at the southern end of the lake is very 

 low and marshy, and wholly devoted to rice-fields. 

 Here were enormous flocks of herons, that made the 

 sawas perfectly white wherever they alighted. Over 

 these low lands is built the road that leads to Solok, 

 six miles distant in a southeasterly direction. 



April Sth. — Rode to Solok. On the way passed 

 twenty-seven women going to the burial of a native 

 prince. Their costume was peculiar, even in this 

 land. It consisted simply of the common sarong 

 open at the right hip, and fastened at the waist to a 

 narrow scarf about the neck, and a turban around 

 the head. About three miles from Sinkara, the way 



