250; A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



CHAPTER VIII. 



SOJOTJEN IN THE PALEMBANG KESIDENCT — continued. 



Muara Mengkulem— Refused entrance into the Djatnbi Sultanate— Napal 

 Litjin — Peak of Karang-nata — Geological formation — Botanical features 

 — ^Birds — Hemipteron milked by ants — Uakit life — Bigin-telok — V. ater 

 roads — An escape li-om drowning — Pau — River squall — Approacli to 

 Palembang — River life and its massive joy — The town of Palembang — 

 Return to Batavia. 



On arriving at Muara Mengkulein I was bitterly disappointed 

 to hear from the Pangeran that he considered it extremely 

 improbable that the Panghulus of Djambi (all the chiefs of 

 the villages in Djambi are priests, the people being bigoted 

 Mahomedans) would consent to my traversing their country, 

 as there was a great deal of fighting going on in the interior. 

 He, however, consented to send a messenger to those among 

 them who were his friends at Bukit-bulan five miles distant, 

 explaining who I was and for what object I wished to visit their 

 country, to which after an interval of some days a reply was 

 brought, that though personally favourable to me they could 

 not be surety for my safety, and advised me not to attempt to 

 enter without the mandate of the Sultan, meaning not the 

 Sultan recognised by the Dutch Government, but the previous 

 deposed ruler, who had taken up his court in the interior of 

 the country and whom all the Djambi people recognised. 

 This was very disappointing, but I had fared no worse than 

 the Dutch Mid-Sumatra expedition, which, two years before, 

 had been advised to turn back at that same place. I proceeded 

 a stage still farther up the river to Napal Litjin, my farthest 

 northern station, a very picturesque village at the foot of 

 another of those nearly perpendicular limestone peaks of which 

 I have made mention more than once, as lying on the eastern 

 outskirts of the Barisan range. 



