BY MOTOR THROUGH THE EAST COAST OF SUMATRA 



99 



highlands were afraid; and the reward I 

 had offered, though small enough, was 

 probably equivalent to about a week's 

 income. 



Then it occurred to me that they were 

 afraid of the automobile itself, and I 

 hastened to assure them that it was not 

 only dry and comfortable, but quite safe ; 

 that I had locked it up, and that it could 

 not move until I myself released it. 



"Oh, it is not that," said the spokes- 

 man, with an air of having slept in auto- 

 mobiles most of his life. 



"Well, what is it then?" I was both 

 curious and a trifle annoyed. 



"Tigers." 



"Tigers?" 



"Yes, indeed," said Joseph nervously, 

 translating. "He say plenty of tigers 

 here come down sure and eat him up !" 



"But not in the automobile," I objected. 



"Oh, no ; tiger first take him out." 



I readily persuaded the men to help 

 carry our luggage to the village, five 

 miles as he estimated it, but nothing 

 would induce any of those natives to 

 spend the night within reach of the great 

 prowling beasts. 



A walk down the mountain to the rest- 

 house on the lake was quite as arduous 

 as we had feared. The trail descended 

 some 1,500 feet in long zigzags. When 

 we finally reached our destination, my 

 mother was nearly exhausted, and we 

 were both too grateful for the shelter 

 to be critical of what we found. But 

 even so, one could hardly have called 

 the accommodations luxurious. The 

 whole building leaked ; it was overrun 

 with toads, lizards, spiders, cockroaches, 

 and various other pests. 



We rose stiff and unrested in the 

 morning, but when the early mists had 

 l-ifted from the green island facing us, 

 the beauty of the clear highland lake 

 banished every thought of weariness and 

 discomfort. 



Few lakes in all the world can offer 

 such a setting as the Toba Meer. The 

 encircling mountains of the Barisan chain 

 rise sheer from the water's edge, their 

 guttered sides white - flecked with the 

 foam of many rain-fed cataracts. 



In the purple shadows along this som- 

 ber rim, indistinct little villages cling pre- 

 cariously to the steep slopes, checkered 



with the tiny squares of a few light green 

 or yellow paddy fields. 



Overhead the winds of the monsoon 

 may moan and whistle about the peaks, 

 but the deep blue surface of the lake is 

 seldom ruffled, save by the V-shaped 

 wakes of the dug-out canoes, which skim 

 about like tiny water-bugs in the vast di- 

 mensions of the silent mountain amphi- 

 theater. 



Amid such surroundings we lost all 

 count of time until hunger necessitated 

 our return to the motor car, which was 

 salvaged from the mud only with great 

 difficulty. 



Many trials and adventures were en- 

 countered in making our way down from 

 the heights, but when we reached Pema- 

 tang Siantar we were out of the high- 

 lands and back again on the coastal plain, 

 although still at a considerable elevation 

 and a long distance inland. The moun- 

 tains from this point sloped quite grad- 

 ually toward the sea. It was again warm 

 at night, warm and soggy, and we re- 

 turned to sleeping on the bedclothes, after 

 the unaccustomed treat in the highlands 

 of sleeping under them. 



A MALAY COSMOPOLIS 



Siantar forms a trade link between the 

 highlands and the coastal regions, and at 

 its market half the nationalities of the 

 Sundas may be found, beside many from 

 the rest of Malaysia, from India proper, 

 and from the extreme East. There in 

 the morning I wandered for over an hour 

 between rows of women and boys who 

 squatted on their heels behind their trays 

 and baskets, while the stream of different 

 tribes flowed steadily past. 



Mostly they were Bataks, hideous with 

 red-stained, toothless mouths ; Sumatra 

 Malays in brilliantly flowered sarongs; 

 and blue-trousered Chinese wearing the 

 typical broad brown topees, or straw af- 

 fairs woven in the form of baskets and 

 filled with a kind of lacquer. 



Others bargained, gossiped, or wan- 

 dered aimlessly among them — Malays 

 from far corners of the archipelago; 

 pretty Sundanese girls with white jackets 

 and smoothly combed hair ; Tamil women 

 in scarlet sari, and Tamil men with white 

 dhoti and red turbans ; Bandjarese, 

 Sikhs, and even wandering Pathan trad- 



