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468 THAVKI.S IN THE EAi^T IN'DIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



small Btream, and, ten miles in a soutliwesterly direc- 

 tion, we came to the Remdent's house at Fort Van 

 der Capellen. The more direct and frequented road 

 between Pay a KomTjo and this place lies between 

 Mount Sago and Mount MerajH ; and those two great 

 elevations are so separate that Tangjong Allam, the 

 highest point on the i-oad, is only three thousand 

 tour hundred feet, abont two hundred feet above 

 Fort de Kock. Four miles beyond, we passed 

 through a village where there is a waringin-tree of 

 enormous dimensions. Its trank is so lai'ge that I 

 found it required eight natives to embrace it by 

 joining hands 1 It is not, however, a single, compact 

 timik, like that of a pine, Tnit is composed of an 

 irregular bundle of them bound together. Besides 

 this, there ai'e three other great trunks which sup- 

 port the larger liml>s, tliis species of Fi'ms being very 

 closely allied to the banyan-tree of India. 



Two miles west of tliis place, on the acclivity of 

 one of the limestone ranges already described, lies 

 Pagaruyong, now a small kampong, but in ancient 

 times one of the capitals of the great Malay kingdom 

 of Menangkabjau. Its early history only comes down 

 to us in obscure legends. One is that Koah and his 

 " forty companions " in the ark discovered dry land 

 at Lankapura, neai' the present city of Palembang, 

 by seeing a bird which had escaped from their vessel 

 alight at that place. From that spot two brothers, 

 Papati-si-batang (a name of Sanscrit origin), and 

 Kayi Tumangung (a name of Javanese origin), who 

 were included in the forty tliat had escaped the del- 

 uge, came to a mountain named Siguntang-guntang, 



