xxiij CELEBES, THE MOLUCCAS, ETC. 381 



Sumatra, about one hundred miles from the sea in three 

 directions. It is the height of the wet season, and the rain 

 pours down strong and steady, generally all night and half 

 the day. Bad times for me, but I walk out regularly three or 

 four hours every day, picking up what I can, and generally 

 getting some little new or rare or beautiful thing to reward 

 me. This is the land of the two-horned rhinoceros, the 

 elephant, the tiger, and the tapir ; but they all make them- 

 selves very scarce, and beyond their tracks and their dung, 

 and once hearing a rhinoceros bark not far off, I am not 

 aware of their existence. This, too, is the very land of 

 monkeys ; they swarm about the villages and plantations, 

 long-tailed and short-tailed, and with no tail at all, white, 

 black, and grey ; they are eternally racing about the tree-tops, 

 and gambolling in the most amusing manner. The way they 

 jump is amazing. They throw themselves recklessly through 

 the air, apparently sure, with one or other of their four 

 hands, to catch hold of something. I estimated one jump by 

 a long-tailed white monkey at thirty feet horizontal, and 

 sixty feet vertical, from a high tree on to a lower one ; he 

 fell through, however, so great was his impetus, on to a 

 lower branch, and then, without a moment's stop, scampered 

 away from tree to tree, evidently quite pleased with his own 

 pluck. When I startle a band, and one leader takes a leap 

 like this, it is amusing to watch the others — some afraid and 

 hesitating on the brink till at last they pluck up courage, take 

 a run at it, and often roll over in the air with their desperate 

 efforts. Then there are the long-armed apes, who never walk 

 or run upon the trees, but travel altogether by their long 

 arms, swinging themselves from bough to bough in the 

 easiest and most graceful manner possible. 



" But I must leave the monkeys and turn to the men, who 

 will interest you more, though there is nothing very remark- 

 able in them. They are Malays, speaking a curious, half- 

 unintelligible Malay dialect — Mohammedans, but retaining 

 many pagan customs and superstitions. They are very 

 ignorant, very lazy, and live almost absolutely on rice alone, 

 thriving upon it, however, just as the Irish do, or did, upon 



