PLASSUR PITTEE. 
31 
guidance, and that we should find them continued to the village, which 
was distant about three miles. Thus directed, we pursued our route 
till within about a mile of our destination, when the precipitous nature 
of the ground obliged us to dismount. Looking back from this spot, 
at a fourth of the ascent up the mountain, we commanded a view of 
a great extent of country, expanding to the computed distance of 
thirty miles. The woods which we had passed seemed to be dwindled 
into spots of green, and the huts of the natives were scarcely visible. 
At six in the evening we reached Plassur Pittee. This village 
stands on a platform that is terraced from the declivity of Gunong 
Karang, which towers at its back. The summit of this mountain is 
covered with thick and impenetrable woods, which, extending beyond 
the village, flank it on both sides. 
We were surrounded by the villagers as soon as we arrived, who 
busied themselves in preparing for our accommodation and refresh- 
ment. To defend us from the cold and damp of the evening, and to 
keep off the musquitoes, they lighted fires about the hut intended 
for our reception. Looking at these men armed with daggers, and 
formed into groups about the fires, and reflecting that we were 
defenceless in the midst of a people who had been often represented as 
assassins, I felt something like alarm, and the first incident I met 
with for a moment increased it. Whilst examining a lamp sus- 
pended before the door of a hut, the natives who had been lying 
around me on the ground hastily started up, and seizing a bundle of 
lighted bamboos, ran towards me. My apprehension was needless. 
Observing me handle the lamp, they imagined I wished for a light, 
and their sudden movement was the consequence of their zeal to 
please me. 
On entering the hut, I found my companion seated with the Ingabi *, 
at a table covered with bananas and oranges. Having added to 
these some of our own stores, we soon found ourselves perfectly 
Native district officer. 
