434 TRAVELS IK THE EAST INDUN ARCHIPELAGO. 



tenor, but tbe natives failed to secure bo valuable a 

 prize. Herds of tliem are said to frequently appear 

 in the Silindong plateau. The tusks of one taken 

 here lately were sold for one thousand guildei-s (four 

 hundred Mexican dollars). On our way we passed 

 eight or ten houses of Battas^ who had come down 

 from the mountains. They were placed on posts 

 like those we have been seeing ; but the gable-ends^ 

 instead of being perpendicular, slant outward, so that 

 the ridge-pole, which comes up high at eaeli end, is 

 much longer than the floor. Over a number of tbese 

 streams we found long suspension bridges, but none 

 were high as that over the Batang Taroli. Ascend- 

 ing to the crest of a mountaiu-range, some six or 

 eight hundred feet in height, we found before us a 

 grand view of the high mountains^ stretching in a 

 semicircle around the bay of Tapanuli ; of the low 

 land at their feet, and of a pjirt of the bay itself A 

 steep^ ^gzag way took us down nearly to the level 

 of the sea, and led us over the low land to the vil- 

 lage of Siboga, a small Dutch settlement and mili- 

 tary station at the head of the bay. 



