“Ve are not a very large party,” returned the professor.  “I do not zink I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish his choomping on me unavares.  Push on, please.”

They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall.

Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra.  The travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western town-halls.  It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood, like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which rose eight or ten feet from the ground.

“You have frunds here too, I zink,” said Verkimier to the hermit, as they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall.

“Well, yes—­I believe I have two or three.”

There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had chanced to arrive on a festive occasion.

“I do believe,” said Nigel in some surprise, “that they are lighting up the place with petroleum lamps!”

“Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve matches—­at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch and Chinese.  Many of their old customs have passed away (among others that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of western civilisation to replace them.”

“No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change,” remarked the professor.

“That,” said Nigel, “has a good deal to do with most things—­from the singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though, doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the proximate cause.”

“Surely dese people mus’ be reech,” said the professor, looking round him with interest.

“They are rich enough—­and well off in every respect, save that they don’t know very well how to make use of their riches.  As you see, much of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments, most of which are of solid gold and silver.”

There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young women were covered, and earrings, etc.,—­all of solid gold and native-made—­there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins.  In short, these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be relegated to the ranks of the married—­the supposed-to-be unfrivolous, and the evidently unadorned!