IN SUMATRA, 



191 



aud the Blalati districts^ which I had just traversed — ^higU 

 plateaus with which conmmnicatitui is difficult— the peoplo ' 

 still I\iUuwed the pagan superstitions of past ages, and euii- 

 tiuued the customs and rites of their great-great forefatbera 

 with little change. 



Passing through the village of Darmftj where Imputed with 

 curiosity the skulls of divers species of animals nailAI to tlie 

 gahle end of a lumae, which pertained, I was informed, to its 

 PangeTan's TuJcang-hinahmfjf or gamekeeper — a fact I might 

 have guessed without asking (had I imagined that PaiigeranB : 

 had among their retinue such an officiiil), since I was myself 

 an inhabitant of a land where his professional brother hangs 

 out as marks of his pro%vess a signboard just as barbarously 

 garnished with the bodies of owls and hawks, weaseln and 

 iuofleiisivo little stjnirrels, and every rare feathered bird that 

 visits his neighbourhood"^ 



T halted for the night at 3Iuaru Inim, a hirge village at 

 the eonfluenco of the Inim with the Lamatang and one of the 

 important centres of commerce and civilisation in tbe Resi* 

 deney. Once a week a small steamer comes here — 120 miles 

 from the coast— bringing mails and piissengers and all the 

 merchandise for the north-western Highlands of Palemhatig. 

 It is the starting-point of the main cross-country road to 

 Beueoolen antl Padang, which after crossing the liiim ascends 

 the western bank of the I^amatang through a rather monoto- 

 nous strip of country^ which I beguiled by examiniug the coal 

 bands (of I'liocene age) that crop out at various points in the 

 clayey marls on the roadside. 8uddenly turning the corner 

 near the yllhige of Merapi, the traveller comes face to face 

 with one of the most singular and pi(rtnresque mountains of 

 Huraatra— the Cerillo Peak^ — which, though high, is, owing - 

 to the configunition of the country, not seen till one is close 1' 

 at its biise. 



The Cerillo is a tall conical mountain on a somewhat nar- 

 row base, rising irregularly till akiut 800 or lOOQ feet from its 

 summit, wlicn it suddenly eontnicts into an inaccessible acute 

 spire, like a gigantic finger pointing heavenward. I was not 

 surprised to be told that among an ignorant people it.-? singular 

 shape had invested it with superstitious di-ead. The natives 

 make long pilgrimages to it to speak with the Dewa that they 



