IN SUMATRA. 221 



dwelling amid the monotonous life of the moiintain villages of 

 the interior, the frequent bugle-calls, the uniformed troops, 

 the overshadowing stone-built fortress, the shop-fronts, which 

 seemed large in my eyes, the substantial houses, the boats on 

 the river loading and unloading cargoes, the coolies running to 

 and fro with goods — this gentle troubling of the pool of industry, 

 seemed to me the very bustle of a metropolis ; and as I walked 

 down its one street to the Travellers' Bungalow, in my travel- 

 scarred garments, great sun-hat and rough boots, I felt the 

 bashfulness of a rustic adding to the redness of my sunburnt 

 countenance, and as uncomfortable as if I had been planted 

 down in similar attire in Eegent Street. 



In resuming my journey towards the Kaba I had to give up 

 my late delicious mode of travel, and change the river for the 

 road. Beaching the village of Tandjong-Ning, I found that 

 much tree-felling was going on in the forests pertaining to it ; 

 and, hoping to enrich my herbarium, I set up my camp for a 

 while in its Balai, a structure that might have held an army. 

 But the village was very unsavoury, as every sort of filth and 

 refuse from the houses was allowed to drop through the floor to 

 the ground below. I found that my fame had reached before 

 me, and that not particularly favourably. For some time tigers 

 had been prowling about in the district in great numbers, and, 

 as the Dempo is called the " Barracks of the Tigers," they had 

 been scared from their natural home by a potent spell which 

 I must have set up there when I ascended it. It was no use 

 to deny the imputation — " it was well known ! " 



The village was prettily situated above the river Baling, 

 which wound about below it in a deep rocky gorge, through 

 banks which are excavated into long pools and deep pots and 

 sparkling rapids, full of fish of fifteen diiferent kinds (accord- 

 ing to the enumeration of the village chief), and for which the 

 inhabitants, who seem ardent lovers of the gentle art, angle 

 with great assiduity and success with bamboo fishing-rods, 

 and a line of single fibre strong as cat-gut, drawn out of the 

 bark of a tree. 



Where the felling was going on in the forest, I obtained 



many fine specimens, and nowhere do I recollect to have seen 



such enormous trees. Thickly scattered about on the ground 



as they were, over an area of perhaps a mile square, I failed 



16 



