256 LOMBOCK. [chap. xi. 



of trees, and low houses concealed behind mud walls. 

 Within this royal city no native of the lower orders is 

 allowed to ride, and our attendant, a Javanese, was obliged 

 to dismount and lead his horse while we rode slowly 

 through. The abodes of the Rajah and of the High Priest 

 are distinguished by pillars of red brick constructed with 

 much taste ; but the palace itself seemed to differ but 

 little from the ordinary houses of the country. Beyond 

 Matarain and close to it is Karangassam, the ancient 

 residence of the native or Sassak Eajahs before the con- 

 quest of the island by the Balinese. 



Soon after passing Mataram the country began gradually 

 to rise in gentle undulations, swelling occasionally into 

 low hills towards the two mountainous tracts in the 

 northern and southern parts of the island. It was now 

 that I first obtained an adequate idea of one of the mosi 

 wonderful systems of cultivation in the world, equalling all 

 that is related of Chinese industry, and as far as I know- 

 surpassing in the labour that has been bestowed upon it 

 any tract of equal extent in the most civilized countries 

 of Europe. I rode through this strange garden utterly 

 amazed, and hardly able to realize the fact, that in this 

 remote and little known island, from which all Europeans 

 except a few traders at the port are jealously excluded, 

 many hundreds of square, miles of irregularly undulating 

 country have been so skilfully terraced and levelled, and 



