BY MOTOR THROUGH THE EAST COAST OF SUMATRA 



89 



not very deep, but they were quite 

 enough, in their saturated condition, to 

 call out the shovel before the car could 

 be extricated. 



Near the mud-hole in which we elected 

 to stop for tiffin, fifty or sixty Batak 

 women were holding a market, all squat- 

 ting about on the ground, surrounded by 

 piles of dried palm leaves, rattan, and 

 big woven baskets full of grain, dried 

 fish, and various other comestibles. 



As seemed generally to be the case 

 throughout the highlands wherever work 

 was in progress, men were conspicuously 

 absent, and the women bargained and 

 gossiped or waited for some one to come 

 and bargain with them, paying little heed 

 to my intrusion in search of photographs. 

 A few were young and not uncomely in 

 feature, but the vast majority appeared 

 old and hideous, the inevitable results of 

 early marriage, overwork, and, above all, 

 the custom of filing the teeth. 



THE PRACTICE OE FILING THE TEETH 



This practice is quite common among 

 the tribes of Sumatra, and with the 

 Bataks it is invariable among both sexes. 

 The operation, an extremely painful one. 

 is begun at an early age and continued 

 until maturity, when both sets of teeth 

 have been completely filed away down to 

 the jawbone. Although the Bataks' usual 

 food of rice, syrup, and finely chopped 

 meat and fish is soft and easily digested, 

 their inability to chew must be a serious 

 physical disadvantage. 



The custom originated as a form of 

 personal adornment, no more strange 

 than many similar practices among other 

 wild tribes of the tropics ; but the reasons 

 for it do not seem to have been inherited 

 with the practice itself. To my repeated 

 inquiries the answer was always the same, 

 the usual native explanation for native 

 customs — "Batak people have always 

 done so." 



The afternoon rain came up earlier 

 than usual and caught us on a winding 

 ascent to one of the higher levels of the 

 plain. Our doubts of ever reaching the 

 top grew very acute, but after many 

 futile attempts and the burial of a great 

 deal of grass in the deep ruts made by 

 the whirling rear wheels, the car strug- 



gled up and we were saved from another 

 night in the open. 



The rain was falling in floods when we 

 finally splashed and skidded into the lit- 

 tle compound of Sariboe Dolok and 

 sought the meager protection of a tiny 

 rest-house. It had two dark little rooms 

 with a kitchen house in the rear, and as I 

 groped my way inside I sprawled over 

 the body of a large tiger. It was quite 

 dead, but the encounter was somewhat 

 startling. 



The house boasted of little in the way 

 of furniture or supplies and the night 

 was very cold, but we were comparatively 

 dry and were offered the luxury of a 

 chicken for supper. 



"Luxury" is perhaps a trifle eulogistic 

 for the rubber-like fowl that was set be- 

 fore us. Had we been able to eat him, 

 we might, like the Batak cannibals, have 

 absorbed the wisdom of his hardy ex- 

 perience ; but life had been too long and 

 death too recent to admit of any such 

 liberties with the corpse. 



Sariboe Dolok, the capital of Simelun- 

 gen and Karolanden, is not of the impor- 

 tance that its official title might suggest. 



It is a lonely settlement of eight or ten 

 native houses, an opium store, the guest- 

 house, and the bungalow of the Assistant 

 Resident, whose life there must be any- 

 thing but socially gay. This courteous 

 official spoke excellent English, as do the 

 majority of Dutch in the colonies, and, 

 besides affording a great deal of informa- 

 tion, made us a present of six eggs — a 

 welcome addition to our tinned supplies, 

 as we had found eggs an unprocurable 

 commodity, even where chickens were 

 to be had. 



I also learned from him that the Kam- 

 pong Kebon Djahe, architecturally the 

 most interesting of the Karo-Batak vil- 

 lages and the one I was most anxious to 

 see, lay about twenty-five miles back by 

 the way we had come, on a hill nearly a 

 mile off, and not visible from, the main 

 road. 



So the following morning we retraced 

 our way over the fearful clay-mud track, 

 by no means improved by the evening's 

 downpour, until we came to a half-oblit- 

 erated trail leading westward toward two 

 isolated little white houses. These formed 



