196 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRArilY AND TEAVEL 



attendant ceremonies. Here before a crowded audience 

 they are invested with their equivalent knighthoods and 

 peerages ; and here, in many villages, they are at last laid 

 out, and pass from it to the grave. Around the Balai, there- 

 fore, centres as it were the whole life of a Lampong village." 



In brief, then, we may describe the inhabitants of 

 Sumatra as consisting of various nations of either pure 

 Malayan or sub-Malayan stock, those in the north being 

 the most hybrid. The majority follow Islamism with more 

 or less laxity, but the centre of the island is occupied by 

 tribes of pure pagans, such as the Battaks, Ulus, Lubus, 

 Kubus, and others. Of these, the Battaks are con- 

 spicuous as affording the only known instance of lettered 

 cannibalism. These pagans, chiefly on account of the in- 

 accessibility of their country, have come very little under 

 Dutch influence. The Ache people have resisted it to the 

 death for the past twenty years, but it has spread steadily 

 though slowly in the north-east, near Dili ; in the 

 Palembang, Lampong, and Benkulen Eesidencies ; and, 

 more especially around Padang and the upland districts 

 behind it. In the south there are abundant evidences of 

 a large Javanese immigration having occurred at some 

 past epoch, while scattered ruins and sculptures in various 

 parts of the island testify to the probability of the exist- 

 ence of some Hindu influence at a remoter period, which 

 influence, however, can never have in any way approached 

 that which held sway in Java. Throughout a large 

 portion of the island we find a communal system obtain- 

 ing, upon which the Dutch attempt to graft their own 

 administration. Lastly, the languages, which are all 

 either pure Malay or sub-Malayan, are remarkable in 

 certain instances (Battak, Korinchi, Eejang, Lampong) as 

 being written in a peculiar character. 



