EXPEDITION INTO INTERIOR OF SUMATRA. 43 
powerful reasons for selecting this portion of the centre of 
Sumatra as the chief aim of the researches of our expedi- 
tion. The more so, as the Government was willing to encour- 
age travelling in all these countries, except SKorintji, 
which, for political reasons, was closed to travellers. All the 
reports of the Government officials as to the attitude of the 
natives were favourable, and the Government itself gave full 
support to the undertaking of our Society by large contribu- 
tions both of money and stores. The actual state of affairs, 
however, as we found afterwards, differed widely from what 
had been hoped for in Holland during the preparations for our 
expedition. Our companion, ScHouw Santvoort, who after- 
wards died at Djambi, experienced this at starting, when 
making his perilous expedition across the island in a canoe; 
and when later we endeavoured to visit the petty states of 
Manangkabo, which divide the Netherlands territory in the 
highlands of Padang from the great kingdom of Djambi, we 
were obliged to beat a precipitate retreat owing to the hostile 
attitude of the Prince of Si Gountour ;* and the news of the 
unfavourable disposition of the above-named States spread 
with such rapidity, that the Government thought it prudent to 
forbid our penetrating further into the States of Rantau, 
Barouk and Djambi from the west. We were therefore 
obliged to turn our steps towards the east. But there also, 
we soon discovered, when we endeavoured to explore the Dis- 
trict of Limoun, a part of the Djambi territory, that all the 
original reports had been dictated by an unjustifiable opti- 
mism, and that even when a friendly chief lent us his sup- 
port, the general feeling of the natives was too hostile 
to allow us to shew ourselves any longer without military 
escort, and still less, of course, to attempt any scientific 
researches. 
* Forbes, the Naturalist, two years later, failed to penetrate into Djambi. 
He was advised “ 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,”—Forbes Lastern 
Archipelago, 253.—En, 
