26 SUMATRA. 
are known, in confequence of repeated furveys, to be lower thaa 
tlie level of high water j the barlk of faiid alone preventing an inua- 
dation. The country is not only entirely free from hilLs or inequalities 
of any kind, but has fcarccly a vifible ilope. Silebar river, which empties 
itfelf into Poolo Bay^ is totally unlike thofe m other parts of the ifland. 
The motion of its Aream is hardly perceptible ; it is never affefted by 
floods J its courfe is marked out, not by banks covered with ancient 
and venerable woods, but by rows of aquatics, mangroves, 6tc, fpring- 
ing from the water, and pcrfe^ily regular. Some miles from the mouth, 
it opens into a beautiful and extenfive lake, diverfified with fmall iflands, 
flat, and verdant with rufhes only. The point of Poolo is covered with 
the Jrow tree, orbaftard Pine, as fome have called it,* which never -grows 
but in fea fand, and rifes faft. None fuch are found toward Soongey- 
IncrochineQt . . 
of the fea, laymo, anr! rj^fl- i-if the* {htirt^ nnrtKiKarrl rtf M^irlK-r^w^li xOmt, WOerO 
on the contrary you perceive the elfedls of continual depredations by 
the ocean. The old foreft trees are there yearly undermined, and falling, 
bbftru(5t the traveller ; whilft about Poolo, the A row trees are continu- 
ally fpringing up, falter than they can be cut down, or otherwife deftroyed. 
Nature will not readily be forced firom her courfe* The lafl time I j^i- 
fited that part, there was a beautiful rifing grove of Pines, eftabJifliing a 
pofTelTion in their proper foil. The country, as well immediately here- 
about, as to a coniiderable diftance inland, is an entire bed of fand, 
without any mixture of clay or mould, which I know to have been in 
vain fought for, many miles up the neighbouring rivers. 
But upon what hypothecs can it be accounted for, that the fea ihould 
commit depredations on the northern coaft ; of which there are the molt 
evident tokens, as high up at leaft as IppGe^ and probably to IndrapQWy 
where the flielter of the neighbouring iHands may put a Hop to them ; 
and that it fliould reftore the land to the fouthward, in the manner I 
have defcribed ? I am aware that according to the general motion of 
* This Arow tree I have rcaf<m to think the fame which Captain Cook oblerved in the Soutfi 
Sea5> and from which he sailed one low famiy iXtand, the l{le of Floes* 
the 
