In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1778 is a brief account of the Batta country and the manners of its inhabitants, extracted from the private letters of Mr. Charles Miller, the Company’s botanist, whose observations I have had repeated occasion to quote.  I shall now communicate to the reader the substance of a report made by him of a journey performed in company with Mr. Giles Holloway, then resident of Tappanuli, through the interior of the country of which we are now speaking, with a view to explore its productions, particularly the cassia, which at that time was thought likely to prove an object of commerce worthy of attention.

MR. MILLER’S JOURNEY INTO THE COUNTRY.

Says Mr. Miller: 

Previously to our setting out on this journey we consulted people who had formerly been engaged in the cassia-trade with regard to the most proper places to visit.  They informed us that the trees were to be found in two different districts; namely in the inland parts to the northward of the old settlement at Tappanuli; and also in the country of Padambola, which lies between fifty and sixty miles more to the southward.  They advised us to prefer going into the Padambola country, although the more distant, on account of the inhabitants of the Tappanuli country (as they represented) being frequently troublesome to strangers.  They also told me there were two kinds of the kulit manis, the one of which, from their account of it, I was in hopes might prove to be the true cinnamon-tree.

June 21st, 1772.  We set out from Pulo Punchong and went in boats to the quallo (mouth or entrance) of Pinang Suri river, which is in the bay, about ten or twelve miles south-east of Punchong.  Next morning we went up the river in sampans, and in about six hours arrived at a place called quallo Lumut.  The whole of the land on both sides of the river is low, covered with wood, and uninhabited.  In these woods I observed camphor trees, two species of oak, maranti, rangi, and several other timber-trees.  About a quarter of a mile from that place, on the opposite side of the river, is a Batta kampong, situated on the summit of a regular and very beautiful little hill, which rises in a pyramidical form, in the middle of a small meadow.  The raja of this kampong, being informed by the Malays that we were at their houses, came over to see us, and invited us to his house, where we were received with great ceremony, and saluted with about thirty guns.  This kampong consists of about eight or ten houses, with their respective padi-houses.  It is strongly fortified with a double fence of strong rough camphor planks, driven deep into the earth, and about eight or nine feet high, so placed that their points project considerably outward.  These fences are about twelve feet asunder, and in the space between them the buffaloes are kept at night.  Without-side these fences they plant a row of a prickly kind of bamboo, which forms an almost impenetrable hedge from twelve to twenty feet