October 13, 1892] 



NATURE 



565 



DR. MODIGLIANrS RECENT EXPLORA TIONS 



IN CENTRAL SUMATRA AND ENGANO. 



T ITTLE more than two years ago, writing in this 

 J-' journal on the results of Dr. Elio Modigliani's 

 accurate and highly interesting exploration of Nias i 

 (Nature, vol. xli. p. 587), I made the remark that our I 

 young traveller had shown that he was made of the stuff - 

 of the very best of scientific explorers. It is therefore : 

 with no small pleasure and pardonable satisfaction that I j 

 now have the good fortune to show further proofs that I \ 

 was not mistaken in thus judging him. j 



Those who have once tasted the sweets of true ex- ; 

 ploration in little-known lands, and who are animated by i 

 the smallest spark oifuoco sacro, have felt and know well 

 that thirst for further travels which goads the late traveller 

 to new wanderings. It was thus with my friend Modi- 

 gliani, and he had hardly finished seeing his book on 

 Nias through the press, when he began to long to be 

 away again. He first thought of taking off the edge of 

 his peregrinatory desire with a visit and collecting tour to 

 the less-known parts of our new " Eritrea,'" but an acci- 

 dent, which might have had serious consequences, kept 

 him back on the eve of departure. On regaining his 

 health, far from being dis- 

 couraged, he matured a 

 wider and bolder plan — that 

 of returning to the vast and 

 lovely lands of the Malayans, 

 and penetrating to the heart 

 of Sumatra through the 

 country of the Toba Battaks. 



Dr. Modigliani left Flo- 

 rence in August 1890. Early 

 in October he was at Siboga, 

 then at Padang-Sidempuan, 

 in Sumatra, where he inter- 

 viewed Mr. van Hasselt, well 

 known in connection with 

 the big Midden Sumatra 

 exploration ; however, as the 

 sequel proved, not much in- 

 formation and aid were got 

 from Mr. van Hasselt and 

 his Government ; besides, 

 war was going on in the 

 Toba region, but this did not 

 deter Modigliani from his 

 object. He had secured the 

 services of Abdul Kerim, the 

 Persian collector andtaxider- 

 mist, who had been with 

 Marquis G. Doria from 1862 

 to 1874, first in Persia, then 

 in Borneo and Tunis, and 



finally at the Museo Civico at Genoa, which, under 

 Doria's energetic and enlightened direction, has, during 

 the last twenty-five years, been one of the most active 

 and fertile centres of zoological research in the world. 

 This was fortunate, for the Javanese hunters and collectors 

 engaged at Buitenzorg were not very efficient. 



Although he included in his baggage only things that 

 were strictly necessary, he had to engage at Siboga 

 forty-one carriers, mostly Toba Battaks, to convey it 

 to the lake. That route, hardly practicable twenty 

 years ago, is now safe, and the only trouble met with 

 was from Dutch convicts engaged in repairing the 

 road. It was on this road, at Ayer Kotti, that the 

 American missionaries, Messrs. Munson and Lyman, 

 not many years ago, were killed and eaten by the 

 Battaks of the neighbouring village, Huta Sakkak. The 

 country rises continually from the coast until the high- 

 lands of the Toba plateau are reached ; it is undulated 

 with mountains and broad valleys, such as that of 



Silindung, but on the highlands the forests have dis- 

 appeared, and the watered depressions with dense vege- 

 tation and the clumps of bamboos surrounding the villages 

 are dotted about. At Tarutung, the principal village of 

 Silindung, Modigliani obtained important information on 

 the independent Battaks from Mr. Welsink, the Dutch 

 Assistant-Resident, who had long resided in the Battak 

 country, and been some time Coniroleur at Laguboti on 

 Lake Toba, now occupied by the Dutch. The Sing.i 

 Manga Rajah, head chief and religious primate of the 

 Battaks, who had already given so much trouble to the 

 Dutch, was again coming to the front, and this time in 

 connection with the irrepressible Atchinese from the 

 north — an alliance of hereditary foes, for the Battaks have 

 always repulsed the Mohammedan Malays against the 

 invading whites. 



By the middle of October 1890, Modigliani was at 

 Balige on the shore of Lake Toba, and on the edge of the 

 wild and unexplored Battak country, the land of his 

 dreams. He describes the lake as grand and imposing, 

 but more like a northern lake, such as Loch Lomond,^ 

 because of its bleak bare mountains and early mists, than 

 what might have been expected in the heart of a tropical 

 island. Lake Toba is about forty-four geographical mile> 



Fig. z.—Solu (boat) on Lake Toba. 



in length ; a large mountainous peninsula divides it in two 

 — Tao Silalahe on the north, and Tao Balige on the south. 

 At Balige Modigliani had the use of a good house, once 

 occupied by Mr. Welsink. He paid an early visit to the 

 Controleur, Mr. van Dijk, at Laguboti, who placed at his 

 disposal the Government boat with its crew, but requested 

 to be informed of any excursion on the lake beforehand, 

 as some of the lacustrine villages were hostile. Modigliani 

 started for a first exploration of Lake Toba on October 

 27. An old chieftain, Ompu Rajah Doli, went with 

 him, partly as guide, partly as protector. He was on his 

 solu,\\it long swift canoe, excavated from a single tree, with 

 which the piratical enterprises on the lake are so deftly 

 performed ; this, not one of the largest, was iS metres 

 long and i metre in width ; it was manned by eighteen 

 paddlers and one steersman. The place of honour is at 

 the prow, which is singularly ornamented. At Ade Ade, 

 one of the further villages, he secured the good will of the- 

 powerful chief, Ompu Raiah Hutsa, and with him visited 



NO. T 198, VOL. 46] 



