1832.] 
ISLAND OF SUMATRA. 
writer describes them as large, well made, naked savages ; very 
numerous, and extremely ill-disposed. The men in general are 
represented as about five feet eight or ten inches in height, and 
well-proportioned. The women are shorter, and not well shaped. 
Their complexion is of a deep red, with straight black hair, which 
the women very neatly roll up on the top of their heads. The 
men always go armed with lances of the cabbage-tree, which is 
extremely hard. They have no iron tools that the writer could 
discover, yet they construct canoes, and erect houses of a circular 
form, resting on ten or twelve iron-wood piles about six feet long, 
planted in the ground. These humble habitations are floored with 
rough planks, the roof rising immediately from the base in a 
conical form, like a straw beehive. They have neither cattle^ 
fowls, nor even rice ; but appear to subsist altogether on cocoa- 
nuts, sugarcane, sweet-potatoes, and fish. They speak a lan- 
guage peculiarly their own; do not chew betele-nut, and have 
white teeth. 
The prevailing winds on this coast of Suihatra, north of the' 
equator, are from northwest and southwest, with land breezes 
during the night. The regular monsoons are subject to many 
variations and interruptions, not only on account of the surround- 
ing islands, but by the very shape and location of Sumatra itself, 
extending, as it does, across the equator in a northwest and, south- 
east direction. < 
The dry season generally begins in May, and continues until 
October. From June until late in September, while the southerly 
winds blow more steadily, the land-breezes are very light, and 
sometimes scarcely perceptible. At other times, brisk sea- 
breezes prevail from the southwest during the day, and land or 
Variable winds during the night. Vessels, therefore, intending 
to touch upon the west coast during this season, should never fall 
in with the land north of their port of destination. Although the 
southeast or southerly monsoons mostly prevail on this coast south 
of the equator, yet northwesters are liable to blow for days at Ei 
time, particularly about the change of the moon. 
The northwest monsooi^ prevails on the same coast, particularly 
south of the equinoctial line, from October to April ; not unfre- 
quently attended with rain, thunder, and lightning. During this 
northwest monsoon/ unsettled land-winds, squally weather, and 
■ N . . ' 
