FROM TEBING TINGI TO BUNGA MAS. 511 



tame one, wliicli was very fond of mangostins, and 

 only lost its good-nature wlien it came to tlie table, 

 and was not treated witli champagne. Wlien fully 

 grown, it is only four and a half feet long. It is 

 herbivorous, and particularly fond of the young 

 leaves of the cocoa-nut palm, and is said to destroy 

 many of those valuable trees to gratify its appetite. 



April ZOtli. — At 6 a. m. commenced the last stage 

 of my journey on horseback. My coui'se now was 

 from Tebing Tingi, on the Musi, in a southeasterly 

 direction, to Lahat, the head of navigation on the 

 Limatang. The distance between these two places is 

 about forty paals, considerably farther than it would 

 be from Tebing Tingi down the Musi to the head of 

 navigation on that river ; but I prefer to take this 

 route, in order to learn something of the localities of 

 coal on the Limatang and its branches, and of the 

 unexj^lored Pasuma country. We crossed the Musi 

 on a raft, and at once the road took us into a forest, 

 which continued with little interniption all the way 

 to Bunga Mas, a distance of twenty-four paals. Most 

 of this forest rises out of a dense undergrowth, in 

 which the creeping stems and prickly leaves of rattans 

 were seen. These are various species of Calamus^ 

 a genus of palms that has small, reed-like, trailing 

 stems, which are in strange contrast to the erect and 

 rigid trunks of the cocoa-nut, the areca, the palmetto, 

 and other palms. It seems paradoxical to call this a 

 palm, and the higli, rigid Tjamboo a species of grass. 

 When they are growing, the stem is sheathed in the 

 bases of so many leaves that it is half an inch in di- 

 ameter. When these are stripj^ed off, a smooth, reed- 



