The plateau in the interior, we have also found, is divided into a number of separate valleys, by transverse ranges, which yoke together the principal chains. In a similar manner transverse ranges appear in Pulo Kapini, one of the Batu Islands, and in the Banyak Islands. These transverse ranges are seen also in the high and well-marked promontories which jut out from the Barizan, or coast-chain of Sumatra, at those places. A third projecting part of the coast is seen at Indrapura. As the valleys in the interior become plateaus, when we compare them to the present sea-level, so is the long, narrow area between these islands and Sumatra a plateau, when compared with the bed of the unfathomable ocean outside of them. In the same manner, then, as the Kurile and Japan Islands, the Lew-Chews, and Formosa, are but the more elevated parts of a great mountain-chain that rises on the eastern edge of the continent of Asia, so these islands are only the tops of another great chain which rises on a part of the southern border of the same continent, and indicates where the wide and deep basin of the Indian Ocean commences.
CHAPTER XVI.
CROSSING SUMATRA.
April 17th.—Took the steamer at Padang for Bencoolen. Nearly all the way we had a heavy wind from the southeast, though the southeastern monsoon has not yet begun in the Java Sea. The western limit of this monsoon region, I judge, after many inquiries, may be considered to be the Cape of Indrapura, but both monsoon winds prevail occasionally as far north as Padang. Farther north the winds are constantly variable. At Tapanuli Bay I was informed that heavy “northers” occasionally prevail for several days; and I was earnestly advised not to go off to the adjacent island of Mensalla in a ship’s boat, though the sea was calm for two or three days at a time.
April 18th.—At 2 P. M. we entered Bencoolen Bay. It is an open roadstead, and the swell raised by the steady southeast trades of the Indian Ocean rolls in and breaks for the first time on the shore, there being no chain of islands to the seaward to protect this part of the coast, as there is farther north. We were able, however, to anchor in the bay off the city. Landing here is difficult, on account of the surf, and especially as the shores are mostly fringed with coral reefs. The city is located on a low bluff, on the south side of the bay.
By a treaty with the Dutch in 1824 this territory was ceded them by the English, in exchange for Malacca and the adjoining country. It is at present under a Resident, who is appointed by the government at Batavia, and is not under the Governor of Padang. The residency commences at the southeastern extremity of the island, and includes the area between the Barizan chain and the sea-coast, from that point as far north as Mokomoko. Its population numbers one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred and fourteen, and is divided as follows:—Europeans, one hundred and seventy-four; natives, one hundred and nineteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one; Chinese, five hundred and ninety-six; Arabs, six; other Eastern nations, forty-seven.
April 19th.—The Resident gave me a large prau to go to Pulo Tikus or Rat Island, a small coral island, about six miles off Bencoolen. On its shore-side the reef curves in at one place, and forms a little bay. All round it, on the edges of the reef, were a number of old anchors, heavy enough for the largest frigates. They had been placed there by the English, who moored their ships at that place, and carried off the pepper from Bencoolen in praus. If Bencoolen had a good harbor or roadstead, it would be an important place, but it has none, and there is no good opportunity to make one.
On Pulo Tikus we found a few fishermen, from whom I obtained a number of the same species of shells that I had gathered before at the Spice Islands and other places in the eastern part of the archipelago. The common nautilus-shell is occasionally found there, and a very perfect one was given me that had been brought from Engano. It is, however, probable that the animal does not live in these seas, and that these shells have floated from the vicinity of the island of Rotti, off the southern end of Timur, where, as already noticed, these rare mollusks are said to live in abundance.
Bencoolen is also well known throughout the archipelago as having been the residence of Sir Stamford Raffles, who was governor of the English possessions, on this coast, from 1818 to 1824. From 1811 to 1816, while the whole archipelago was under the English, Sir Stamford was governor-general, and resided near Batavia, and it was contrary to his most earnest representations that Java and its dependencies were ceded back to the Dutch; and the great, direct revenue which those islands have yielded to Holland, since that time, has proved, in an emphatic manner, the correctness of his foresight. Ever since I arrived at Batavia, I have frequently heard his name mentioned by the Dutch officials, and always with the greatest respect.
Governor Raffles’s taste for natural history was very marked. During his visit to London, before coming here, he founded the Zoological Society, and began the Zoological Gardens, which now form one of the chief inducements to strangers to visit that great and wealthy metropolis. When he sailed from this port, his ship was nearly loaded with the animals of the region, living and mounted, but, the same evening, when not more than fifty miles from the coast, she took fire, and her crew and passengers barely escaped with their lives. Not only all Sir Stamford’s specimens, but all his official documents, and the many private papers he had been gathering during twelve years, were irreparably lost. Such a strange fatality seems to attend the shipment of specimens in natural history from the East, but I trust that mine may be an exception to this rule.[56]