522 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



natives stood ready on tlie bank to guide our boat. 

 This service tliey render the Dutcli Government in- 

 stead of paying a direct tax in money. 



A short distance below Lahat, on the right bank, 

 is a remarkably needle-like peak called Bukit Sirilo. 

 Near this hill the Limatang makes a long bend to the 

 north, and after we had left it two or three miles be- 

 hind us I was quite surprised to find we had turned 

 sharply round, and that it was now two or three 

 miles before us. A short distance above the Sirilo 

 we passed a fine outcropping of coal in the left bank. 

 The government engineers have examined it, and 

 found it to be soft and bituminous, but containing 

 too large a proportion of incombustible matter to be 

 of any great value. The strata dip toward the coast. 

 The Resident of Tebing Tingi informed me that a 

 similar coal is found on the Musi below that place. 

 I believe that strata of recent limestone, containing 

 corals, which I observed above Tebing Tingi, under- 

 lie this coal, and that it is, therefore, of very recent 

 geological age. At 4 p. m. we came to Muara Inem, 

 a large kampong of two thousand souls, on the Inem, 

 at its juncture with the Limatang. Here I had the 

 pleasure of meeting the controleur^ whom I had met 

 in the Minahassa, and who had been my fellow-trav- 

 eller from Celebes to Java. During the latter third 

 of my way down the Limatang to this point, the 

 country is well peopled, and forms a marked contrast 

 with the sparsely-populated regions through which I 

 have been travelling since leaving Bencoolen. 



At one kampong we saw three women in a small, 

 flat-bottomed canoe, each sitting erect and paddling 



