it ' IN JATA. 103 



On 3roiiiit. Danjrka anrl on the summits of many of the 

 noi«^libouring hills I gtiiiultlfJ on groves eontftiiihig eith<'r 

 roeks naturally in situ, or stones that had been phvced there, 

 which my prn'ters refnsorl to enter for fear of Ijein;^ affected by 

 some sit'kuess or mL^sfortuue. " They are Patapahiian " (places 

 of penance and worship), they would say, and are the sacrt^J ; 

 spots where they believe their ancestors who, refusing to 

 embrace Maliomedanism, flod to the forests, vaiitshod in invi- ^ 

 sible forms. Whenever calamity overtakes them — when their - 

 crops liave fa'led f>r they are childless — they repair (in 

 greatest numbers during the month of the chief Mahomedan 

 fast — Ramadan) to these Tapa, where they will sj)eud days 

 of fasting and awesome terror^ in the liope that the 3[)irits of 

 their transijgured forefathers will grant them the desire of 

 their heiirt3, In dire sickness, when the slender list of their 

 pharmacojKeia has been exhausted, they will as a hist resource 

 send to gather lichens from the sacred stones of the despised 

 Kalangs or the Badui, in the belief that a decoction therefrom 

 \\ '\\\ avail to ward off or heal their sickness. 



Jt is quite a common thing to encounter by the wayside 

 near a village, or in a rice-field, or below the shade of a grent 

 dark tree, a little platform with an off ei-ing of rice and prepared-'^' 

 fruits to keep disease and blight at a distance, and pro]ntiate 

 Ihe spirits ever lying in wait in gloomy, sunless (and naturally 

 flepresaing) spot« to harm the piisser by. This fear of lurking 

 evil ever oppresses their lives. No one can be tbund brave 

 enough to touch a man struck to the ground, for instauee, 

 by lightning; they will enver him up where he fell, with 

 leaves or generally with stable dung, and commit his re- 

 covery to nature. If he recover, well and good ; but to cjirry 

 him fram the spot, to lift him or meddle with him while un- 

 conscious, would be to cry down the Avenger's displeasure on 

 their own hoad. 



In the mttnth of January L'^NO, Dr. ^cheffer, the tlien Di- 

 rector of tlie Buitenzorg Gardens, wrote to me that, as much 

 virgin tbrest was being felled among the mountains not far 

 from the (biverument Cinchona Plantations in the adjoining 

 province ol' (lie Preanger, fi good opportunity offered itself of 

 increasing my herbarium. This waa not a chance to let slip, 

 so, bidding a reluctant farewell tt> Kosala, I set off for Buitenzorg 



