186 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



has its little army, which is bound to present itself 

 equipped for service at the outbreak of war. This it is, 

 combined with thick jungle and want of roads, which has 

 caused, and is still causing, the Ache war. The constant 

 acts of piracy in the Straits of Malacca led to the English 

 Treaty of 1871, which gave Holland a free hand. Hos- 

 tilities were commenced m 1872, but the Dutch suffered 

 a reverse. It was not till a year later, and after a siege 

 of forty-seven days, that the Sultan's fortress, situated 

 about two miles inland from Olele, was captured. After 

 a struggle of twenty years, an expenditure of over 

 £20,000,000, and the loss of many thousands of lives, 

 the Dutch find themselves in a hardly better position 

 than at the beginning of the war. The greater part of 

 the interior is still independent, and will probably remain 

 so for many years to come. A new experiment has lately 

 been tried, — the blockading of the various ports. By 

 this means an opium and tobacco famine has been 

 created, from which favourable results are anticipated. 

 But the chief weapon upon which the Dutch rely to 

 place Ache eventually in their hands is the want of 

 cohesion among the numerous petty states of which a 

 great part of the country is composed. Of these may be 

 mentioned the Gaious and Alias, and the Karos, who 

 inhabit the country between the Battaks and the Alias, 

 of all of whom little or nothing is known. 



South of Ache comes the country of the Battaks, a 

 territory of great extent, for people of this race extend 

 south nearly as far as Mount Ophir, up to the head 

 waters of the Siak river. They are essentially an inland, 

 hill people, and are most thickly grouped around the 

 Toba Lake, which tliey themselves consider as the cradle 

 of their race. Those on the Ache border were visited 

 by a Dutch Government expedition in 1891, and were 



