ANCIENT BUILDING.

High up on the river of Batu Bara, which empties itself into the straits of Malacca, is found a large brick building, concerning the erection of which no tradition is preserved amongst the people.  It is described as a square, or several squares, and at one corner is an extremely high pillar, supposed by them to have been designed for carrying a flag.  Images or reliefs of human figures are carved in the walls, which they conceive to be Chinese (perhaps Hindu) idols.  The bricks, of which some were brought to Tappanuli, are of a smaller size than those used by the English.

SINGKEL.

Singkel River, by much the largest on the western coast of the island, has its rise in the distant mountains of Daholi, in the territory of Achin, and at the distance of about thirty miles from the sea receives the waters of the Sikere, at a place called Pomoko, running through a great extent of the Batta country.  After this junction it is very broad, and deep enough for vessels of considerable burden, but the bar is shallow and dangerous, having no more than six feet at low-water spring-tides, and the rise is also six feet.  The breadth here is about three-quarters of a mile.  Much of the lower parts of the country through which it has its course is overflowed during the rainy season, but not at two places, called by Captain Forrest Rambong and Jambong, near the mouth.  The principal town lies forty miles up the river on the northern branch.  On the southern is a town named Kiking, where more trade is carried on by the Malays and Achinese than at the former, the Samponan or Papa mountains producing more benzoin than those of Daholi.  It is said in a Dutch manuscript that in three days’ navigation above the town of Singkel you come to a great lake, the extent of which is not known.

Barus, the next place of any consequence to the southward, is chiefly remarkable for having given name throughout the East to the Kapur-barus or native camphor, as it is often termed to distinguish it from that which is imported from Japan and China, as already explained.  This was the situation of the most remote of the Dutch factories, long since withdrawn.  It is properly a Malayan establishment, governed by a raja, a bandhara, and eight pangulus, and with this peculiarity, that the rajas and bandharas must be alternately and reciprocally of two great families, named Dulu and D’ilhir.  The assumed jurisdiction is said to have extended formerly to Natal.  The town is situated about a league from the coast, and two leagues farther inland are eight small villages inhabited by Battas, the inhabitants of which purchase the camphor and benzoin from the people of the Diri mountains, extending from the southward of Singkel to the hill of Lasa, behind Barus, where the Tobat district commences.

TAPPANULI.