BY MOTOR THROUGH THE EAST COAST OF SUMATRA 



79 



Each room has its own covered veranda 

 in front, cool and shady and screened 

 from view, and its own bath in the rear. 

 The comfort and privacy of this style of 

 construction is unequaled for warm cli- 

 mates. 



With the aid of the proprietor of the 

 hotel, I procured a servant, a Malay- 

 speaking Kling, to take with us into the 

 interior. Kling is the term used in Malay 

 countries for Tamils and occasionally for 

 other races of Southern India who come 

 to these countries as settlers or for trade. 

 (All other continental Indians are called 

 Bengalis.) Joseph was a Tamil, a Cath- 

 olic from French Pondicherry, and a very 

 good servant. 



THE WHITE MAN'S ADVENT RESISTED 

 WITH EANATICAE COURAGE 



The whole of Sumatra has presented 

 a very different problem to Dutch coloni- 

 zation from the organization of Java, 

 with ten times its population. The in- 

 habitants of the larger island, though 

 few in numbers, have resisted foreign 

 interference with the most stubborn and 

 fanatical courage. Each one of its nu- 

 merous tribes and principalities has had 

 to be subdued in turn, a long and difficult 

 process, as there was none of the almost 

 docile submission of the Javanese. 



Sumatra is immense in area and be- 

 tween its different sections there is little 

 inland communication, that which exists 

 being of a treacherous and warlike char- 

 acter. Much of the island remains un- 

 explored ; other parts, as the whole of 

 Achin, in the north, are still in a state of 

 protracted warfare, which seems destined 

 to end only with the eventual extermina- 

 tion of the resisting tribes. 



The Achinese war alone has cost over 

 200,000 lives and been an expense to Hol- 

 land of $200,000,000. The first hostili- 

 ties date back to 1599, but for the last 

 forty years fighting has been continuous, 

 a guerrilla warfare of surprises and am- 

 bushes in the jungles, in which the deter- 

 mined resistance of the Achinese contin- 

 ues undiscouraged, although their gov- 

 ernment has been deposed and all their 

 towns and strategic positions occupied by 

 Dutch troops. 



Leaving the capital, our road at first led 



through some miles of country dense and 

 green with vegetation, with tiny thatched 

 native huts making picturesque brown 

 spots in the midst of fruit trees and coco 

 palms. As we approached nearer to the 

 hills, this gave way to open plains cov- 

 ered with high grass and low bushes, the 

 characteristic tobacco land of Deli. 



THROUGH THE FAMOUS TOBACCO LANDS 



The larger estates, especially those of 

 the Deli Company, are divided into sec- 

 tions under the administration of assist- 

 ant managers. Each year only one-tenth 

 to a fifth of their enormous area is under 

 cultivation, since to maintain the high 

 quality of the tobacco grown the land is 

 left fallow for from five to ten years after 

 each crop. During the first year the na- 

 tives are permitted to grow rice upon the 

 fallow fields ; then the soil is left to itself 

 and to the bushes and rank grass which 

 soon cover it. 



The tobacco crop is a rich one, but the 

 demands it makes upon the land and upon 

 labor are such that it is not surprising to 

 find the newer estates annually devoting 

 more and more of their attention and ter- 

 ritories to rubber and other less exacting 

 products. 



Gradually ascending in altitude, we 

 passed through many miles of these mon- 

 otonous, fallow-lying plains, their deso- 

 late appearance only increased by an oc- 

 casional row of unused drying-sheds 

 and a few fire-blackened trunks of huge 

 toealang trees, solitary survivors of the 

 primeval forest. 



The sections actually in cultivation, 

 however, were extremely interesting, with 

 many acres of magnificent tobacco plants 

 growing to a height of five or six feet in 

 closely planted parallel ridges. Frequently 

 they hedged the road on both sides and 

 extended in unbroken rows as far as the 

 eye could follow over the rolling fields. 



EACH RACE TO ITS OWN TASK 



The work of the plantation is many- 

 sided and the various nationalities em- 

 ployed are usually engaged in their own 

 distinctive branches of labor. Thus, al- 

 though sometimes replaced by other races, 

 Chinese predominate in the actual work 

 on the ; tobacco plants ; the bullock-cart 



