IN SUMATRA. 141 



villagers, are to be seen dotted over its floor. During the 

 day, the orang-jaga, or watchman, who occupies an open guard- 

 room during the night, makes the Balai his watch-tower. 

 All travellers passing through the village are free to its shade 

 and shelter. The orang-hedagavg, or itinerant pedlar, finds 

 at once a free lodging, a market-place for his goods, and an 

 eager crowd to listen to the news he brings. Here all civic 

 feasts and festive gatherings are held. Here they enjoy the 

 pleasures of the dance for unbroken days and nights together. 

 This being truthfully explained, means that the seated youths 

 behold with delighted eyes the peculiar and monotonous 

 posture figures, supposed to be elegant and most bewitching, 

 of the ornament-bedizened maidens performing two and two 

 at a time to the clanging and clamour of gong and drum, and 

 that the maidens in their turn have the privilege of gazing 

 on their future lords going through the same performance. 

 Under its roof, their love is consummated in the wedding 

 and attendant ceremonies. Here, before a crowded audience, 

 they are invested with their equivalent knighthoods and peer- 

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

 and pass from it to the grave. Around the Balai, therefore, 

 centres, as it were, the whole life of a Lam pong village. 



The Lampongers claim to be descended from the Malays of 

 Menangkabau (a district in the Padang region of Sumatra's 

 West coast), where it is believed the first conquerors of the 

 island established their kingdom, whence they spread to the 

 northern central portion, and thence along the west and southern 

 coasts, of what is now the Lampong Eesidency, at first, slowly 

 by families and small communities, which agglomerated into 

 separate mar gas with their chiefs. 



The dialect spoken in the Lam pongs "appears to be an 

 original tongue, with one-third of its words of unknown origin." * 

 I am doubtful how far this will be borne out by its closer 

 study. It contains a very large number of corrupted Malay 

 and Sundanese words; but the written symbols are pecu- 

 liar to Sumatra. In Java, where Malay (met with in the 

 coast towns), Sundanese (spoken only in the west of Java 

 and supposed to be a distinct language), and Javanese are 

 the spoken languages, Arabic is employed for expressing 

 * Stanford's Compendium of Geography, Australasia, Appendix. 

 11 



