1832.] 
ISLAND OF SUMATRA, 
179 
district is bounded on the north by the kingdom of Acheen, and 
on the southwest by Passumman. This is a populous region ; 
and from the great Bay of Tappanooly, which penetrates deeply 
into the country, a considerable trade was once carried on, and 
monopoHzed for a long time by the English, who took it from the 
Achenese. 
In personal appearance, the Battas are smaller and fairer than 
the Malays, which may be owing to their distance from the sea. 
Their dress is plain, consisting of common cotton cloth of their 
own manufacture, died of a brown colour, or a deep blue. The 
young women are fond of ornaments, wearing occasionally not 
less than fifty tin rings in their ears at the same time.- , , ' 
The food of the lower orders is principally maize and sweet- 
potatoes ; while the rajah, and people of rank and wealth, indulge 
in the greater luxury of rice. They are fond of horse flesh, and 
feed these animals with great care for the express purpose of food. 
In their domestic relations, there is no striking difference be- 
tween them and other tribes already noticed. Polygamy prevails ; 
and in their marriage contracts, the parents of the bride always 
receive a valuable consideration in buffaloes in exchange for their 
daughter. The women labour in the fields, while the men, when 
not engaged in war, pass their time in idleness and gaming ; the 
latter being a vice which prevails among them without limit or 
restriction, and is generally prosecuted with an ardour that termi-' 
nates only in the ruin of one of the parties-, who is perhaps sold 
as a- slave to pay his debts of honour ! 
That trait in the character of the Battas which has given them 
most notoriety among the inhabitants of Sumatra, is the custom, 
attributed to them by all early writers, of eating human flesh. 
How far they may have been the real anthropophagi of the an- 
cients, is not known ; but all modern accounts agree, that when 
human flesh is now eaten among them, it is not from any un- 
natural, sensual appetite ; but the very natural moral appetite 
of barbarians for savage triumph and revenge ; to manifest the 
utter detestation in which they hold their enemies ; or their abhor- 
rence of the crimes for which their malefactors may have suf- 
fered death. 
The country of the Battas is divided into numerous petty dis- 
tricts, each of which is headed by a rajah, who extends his power 
M 2 
