an elevated forest-clad country, so that I began to think it would be useless going
on, as the time at my disposal was too short to make it worth my while to spend
much more of it in moving about. At length, however, I found a man who knew
the country, and was more intelligent; and he at once told me that if I wanted
forest I must go to the district of Rembang, which I found on inquiry was about
twenty-five or thirty miles off.
The road is divided into regular stages of ten or twelve miles each, and,
without sending on in advance to have coolies ready, only this distance can be
travelled in a day. At each station there are houses for the accommodation of
passengers, with cooking-house and stables, and six or eight men always on
guard. There is an established system for coolies at fixed rates, the inhabitants of
the surrounding villages all taking their turn to be subject to coolie service, as
well as that of guards at the station for five days at a time. This arrangement
makes travelling very easy, and was a great convenience for me. I had a pleasant
walk of ten or twelve miles in the morning, and the rest of the day could stroll
about and explore the village and neighbourhood, having a house ready to
occupy without any formalities whatever. In three days I reached Moera-dua, the
first village in Rembang, and finding the country dry and undulating, with a
good sprinkling of forest, I determined to remain a short time and try the
neighbourhood. Just opposite the station was a small but deep river, and a good
bathing-place; and beyond the village was a fine patch of forest, through which
the road passed, overshadowed by magnificent trees, which partly tempted me to
stay; but after a fortnight I could find no good place for insects, and very few
birds different from the common species of Malacca. I therefore moved on
another stage to Lobo Raman, where the guard-house is situated quite by itself in
the forest, nearly a mile from each of three villages. This was very agreeable to
me, as I could move about without having every motion watched by crowds of
men, women and children, and I had also a much greater variety of walks to each
of the villages and the plantations around them.
The villages of the Sumatran Malays are somewhat peculiar and very
picturesque. A space of some acres is surrounded with a high fence, and over
this area the houses are thickly strewn without the least attempt at regularity.
Tall cocoa-nut trees grow abundantly between them, and the ground is bare and
smooth with the trampling of many feet. The houses are raised about six feet on
posts, the best being entirely built of planks, others of bamboo. The former are
always more or less ornamented with carving and have high-pitched roofs and
overhanging eaves. The gable ends and all the chief posts and beams are
sometimes covered with exceedingly tasteful carved work, and this is still more