PALEMBANG, BANCA, AND SINGAPORE

May 4 at 7am I began to glide down the Limatang for Palembang.

From Lahat to the mouth of the Inem River relays of[522] natives stood ready on the bank to guide our boat. This service they render the Dutch Government instead of paying a direct tax in money.

A short distance below Lahat, on the right bank, is a remarkably needle-like peak called Bukit Sirilo. Near this hill the Limatang makes a long bend to the north, and after we had left it two or three miles behind us I was quite surprised to find we had turned sharply round, and that it was now two or three miles before us. A short distance above the Sirilo we passed a fine outcropping of coal in the left bank. The government engineers have examined it, and found it to be soft and bituminous, but containing too large a proportion of incombustible matter to be of any great value. The strata dip toward the coast.

The Resident of Tebing Tingi informed me that a similar coal is found on the Musi below that place. I believe that strata of recent limestone, containing corals, which I observed above Tebing Tingi, underlie this coal, and that it is, therefore, of very recent geological age. At 4 P. M. we came to Muara Inem, a large kampong of two thousand souls, on the Inem, at its juncture with the Limatang. Here I had the pleasure of meeting the controleur, whom I had met in the Minahassa, and who had been my fellow-traveller from Celebes to Java. During the latter third of my way down the Limatang to this point, the country is well peopled, and forms a marked contrast with the sparsely-populated regions through which I have been travelling since leaving Bencoolen.

At one kampong we saw three women in a small, flat-bottomed canoe, each sitting erect and paddling[523] with both hands. In this way they crossed the river with a surprising rapidity, considering the simple apparatus they used. The readiness with which they paddled indicated that this is no very uncommon mode of crossing rivers in this land.

As the villages became larger and more frequent, more and more cocoa-nut trees appeared, and soon we passed several large bamboo rafts, bearing sheds that were filled with this fruit, and in one place two natives were seen quietly floating down the river on a great pile of these nuts in the most complacent manner. At first I expected to see the nuts fly off in all directions and the men disappear beneath the surface of the river, but as we came nearer I saw the nuts were fastened together in small bunches by strips of their own husks, and these bunches were bound into a hemispherical mass large enough to float the two men.

The nuts on the raft were to be taken down to Palembang, where the cocoa-palms do not flourish. During the day we saw two or three large troops of monkeys. This is a very pleasant time to pass down these rivers, because they are now high, and instead of seeing only walls and bluffs of naked mud on either hand, the banks are covered with grass down to the water’s edge, and the bamboos and trees, that grow here in tropical luxuriance, lean over gracefully toward the rapid river, and lave the tips of their lowest branches in the passing current.

May 5th.—The controleur kindly took me in his large barge, with twenty men to paddle and two men to steer, some five miles up the Inem River to Lingga,[524] where there is an outcropping of coal in the river bank. The coal found there is very light, almost as soft as charcoal, and evidently of a very recent geological age. A similar but somewhat better coal is found five or six miles farther up this river. At Karang Tingi, three miles up the river from Muara Inem, the rajah of that district gave me a bottle of petroleum, which is about as thick as tar, and, according to the examinations of the Dutch chemists, does not contain much paraffine, naphtha, nor material suitable for burning in lamps. It is found about six miles back from the river. At Karang Tingi we noticed a number of boys enjoying an odd kind of sport. They were sliding down the high slippery bank on their naked backs.

At Muara Inem the controleur showed me a large garden filled with trees, from which the “palm-oil” is manufactured. It is a low palm, and the fruit is not much larger than the betel-nut. I understood him to say that it was the Elais Guineensis, and had been introduced from the Dutch possessions on the west coast of Africa. The oil is contained in the husk, and is used in manufacturing soap and candles.

A VIEW ON THE RIVER LIMATANG, SUMATRA.

May 6th.—Very early this morning started with the controleur down the Limatang in his barge, with twenty men. During last night the river rose here four or five feet, and the current is now unusually strong. From Muara Inem, to where it empties into the Musi, it is very crooked, constantly bending to the right in nearly equal curves, the current, of course, being strongest in the middle of each bend. This constant curving gives an endless variety to its scenery.[525] The water, being high, enabled us to see the cleared places that occurred from time to time on the bank; though generally only a thick wood or dense jungle appeared on either hand, yet I never for a moment was weary of watching the graceful bending of the reeds and tall bamboos, and of the varied grouping of these with large trees. In two places the river makes such long bends, that artificial canals have been made across the tongues of land thus formed. One of these cuts, which was less than a hundred yards long, saved us going round half a mile by the river. Every four or five miles we came to a large kampong, and exchanged our boatmen for new ones, so that all day long we swiftly glided down the smooth stream, one relay of men not getting weary before they were relieved by another, and the strong current also helping us onward. The kampongs here are free from the filth seen in those farther up in the interior. The houses are all placed on posts five or six feet high, for sometimes the whole country is completely flooded. Many of them are built of well-planed boards, and have a roofing of tiles. When the sun had become low, we came to the large kampong of Baruaiyu. At all these villages there is a raft with a house upon it, where the boatmen waited for us. Fastening our boat to one of these, we took up our quarters in the rajah’s house. Like those built by our Puritan forefathers, it had one long roof and one short one, but it was so low that a tall man could scarcely stand up in it anywhere. The floor, instead of being level, rose in four broad steps, and the whole building formed but one[526] large apartment with two small rooms at the rear end.

May 7th.—A severe toothache and the bites and buzzing of thousands of mosquitoes made me glad to see the dawn once more, and again be floating down the river. Before we came to the chief village of each district, where we were to exchange boatmen, we always met the boat of the rajah of that place, and were greeted with shouts and a great din from tifas and gongs.

The rajahs in this region are divided into three grades, and their ranks are shown by the small hemispherical caps they wear. Those of the highest rank have theirs completely covered with figures wrought with gold thread; those of the second rank have theirs mostly covered with such ornaments; and those of the third rank wear only a gold band. They all carry krises of the common serpentine form. Those that have the wavy lines alike on each side of the blade are regarded as the most valuable. The handles are usually made of whale’s-teeth, and very nicely carved; and the scabbards are frequently overlaid with gold. Those that have been used by famous chiefs are valued at all sorts of enormous prices, but are never sold. They also frequently wear a belt covered with large diamond-shaped plates of silver, on which are inscribed verses of the Koran, for the natives of this region are probably the most zealous and most rigid Mohammedans in the archipelago.

The staple article of food here is rice. They also raise much cotton from seed imported from our[527] Southern States. Having gathered it from the ripe bolls, they take out the seeds by running it between two wooden or iron cylinders, which are made to revolve by a treadle, and are so near together, that the seeds, which are saved for the next season, cannot pass through. The fibres are very short, compared to the average product raised in our country, but it serves a good purpose here, where they make it into a coarse thread, which they weave by hand into a cloth for kabayas and chilanas.

The marriage rites and laws here are nearly the same as those I have already described at Taba Pananjong, except that the price of a bride here is just that of a buffalo, or about eighty guilders (thirty-two dollars). Unless a young man has a buffalo or other possessions of equal value, therefore, he cannot purchase a wife. Near Baruaiyu there is a peculiar people known as the Rembang people, who live in four or five villages at some distance from the river. They are very willing to learn to read and write their own language, but will not allow themselves to be taught Dutch or Malay. Last night the river rose still higher, and now it has overflowed its banks, which appear much lower than they are between Lamat and Muara Inem. During the day we have had several showers. At 5 P. M. we arrived at Sungi Rotan, the last village on the Lamatang before its confluence with the Musi. It is a small and poor village, the land here being generally too low for rice, and the cocoa-nut palms yielding but little compared to what they do higher up. Farther down toward Palembang they yield still less. This[528] is the limit of the controleur’s district in this direction. It extends but a short distance up the Inem and up the Limatang above Muara Inem, and yet it contains no less that ninety-one thousand souls.

The controleur came here to settle a difficulty between the people of this and a neighboring village. The other party had occupied a portion of the rice-lands belonging to this people, and the trouble had risen to such a pitch, that the government had to interfere, to prevent them from beginning a war. I said to the rajah that, beyond Lamat, I had passed for miles through a beautiful country, and that it seemed to me he would do well to migrate there; but he evidently disliked such a suggestion, and the controleur asked me not to urge him to adopt my view, for fear that he might think the government designed sending him there, and because he and all his people would rather die than go to live in any distant region.

May 8th.—At 6½ A. M. started for Palembang. My own boat, which I sent on directly from Muara Inem, arrived here yesterday a few hours before us, having been three days in coming down the same distance that we have made in two. We soon stopped at the request of one of the boatmen to examine a small bamboo box which he had set in a neighboring bayou for crawfish. Several were found in it. Their eyes seemed to emit flashes of light, and appeared to be spherical jewels of a light-scarlet hue. I found them palatable when roasted. The boatmen also found some Ampullariæ, which they said they were accustomed to eat, and I found them palatable also[529] We soon floated out of the narrow Limatang into the wide and sluggish Musi, and changed our course from north to east. There are great quantities of rattan along the lower part of the Limatang and the Musi, and the natives gather only a small fraction of what they might if they were not so indolent. Last night, at Sungi Rotan, the mosquitoes proved a worse pest than the night before, and they have continued to annoy us all day.

In the afternoon I had a slight attack of fever, almost the only one I have had since I was ill immediately after my arrival in Batavia, a few days more than a year ago. After three large doses of quinine I fell asleep, my boatmen saying that we should not reach Palembang till morning, which entirely agreed with my own wishes, as I did not care to call during the evening on the assistant Resident, whom I had already notified of my coming. When the last dose had disappeared I soon became oblivious to all real things, and was only troubled with the torturing images seen in a fever-dream. While these hideous forms were still before my mind’s eye, I was suddenly aroused by a loud noise, and, while yet half awake, was dazzled by a bright light on the water, and, on looking out, saw that we were near a large house. On the brilliantly-lighted portico above us were festoons of flowers, and, while I was yet gazing in wonder, inspiriting music sprang up and couple after couple whirled by in the mazy waltz. I put my hand up to my head to assure myself that I was not the victim of some hallucination, and my boatmen, apparently perceiving my state of mind, informed[530] me that we had arrived at Palembang, and that a sister of one of the officials had lately been married, and her brother was celebrating the happy occasion by giving a grand “feast,” or, as we should say, a ball.

The bright light, the enlivening music, and the constant hum of happy voices, instantly banished all possibility of my entertaining the thought of remaining for the night in my dark, narrow cabin; and at once, with no other light whatever than that reflected on the water from the bright ballroom, I prepared myself to meet the Resident in full dress. He was greatly surprised to see me at such a late hour, but received me in a most cordial manner, and at once commenced introducing me to the host and hostess, the bride and bridegroom, and all the assembled guests. The chills and burning fever, from which I had been suffering, vanished, and in a moment I found myself transferred from a real purgatory into a perfect paradise.