Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
any conception of an elevated forest-clad country, so that I began to think it would be use-
less 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 dis-
trict 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 sta-
tion 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 vil-
lage 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 vil-
lages 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 the case in
the district of Menangkabo, further west. The floor is made of split bamboo, and is rather
shaky, and there is no sign of anything we should call furniture. There are no benches or
