CHAPTER VIII. 



SUMATRA. 



(NOVEMBER 1861 TO JANUARY 1862.) 



TPHE mail steamer from Batavia to Singapore took me to 

 Muntok (or as on English maps, " Minto "), the chief 

 town and port of Banca. Here I stayed a day or two, till I 

 could ohtain a boat to take me across the straits, and up 

 the river to Palembang. A few walks into the country 

 showed me that it was very hilly, and full of granitic and 

 laterite rocks, with a dry and stunted forest vegetation ; 

 and I could find very few insects. A good-sized open 

 sailing-boat took me across to the mouth of the Palenibanu 

 river, where at a fishing village, a rowing-boat was hired 

 to take me up to Palembang, a distance of nearly a hundred 

 miles by water. Except when the wind was strong and 

 favourable Ave could only proceed with the tide, and the 

 banks of the river were generally flooded Mpa-swamps, so 

 that the hours we were obliged to lay at anchor passed 

 very heavily. Reaching Palembang on the 8th of Novem- 

 ber, I was lodged by the Doctor, to whom I had brought 



