SI BIRU.

The next island in the same direction is named Si Biru, which, although of considerable size, being larger than Si Porah, has commonly been omitted in our charts, or denoted to be uncertain.  It is inhabited by the Mantawei race, and the natives both of Si Porah and the Pagi Islands consider it as their parent country, but notwithstanding this connexion they are generally in a state of hostility, and in 1783 no intercourse subsisted between them.  The inhabitants are distinguished only by some small variety of the patterns in which their skins are tattooed, those of Si Biru having them narrower on the breast and broader on the shoulders.  The island itself is rendered conspicuous by a volcano-mountain.

PULO BATU.

Next to this is Pulo Batu, situated immediately to the southward of the equinoctial line, and, in consequence of an original mistake in Valentyn’s erroneous chart, published in 1726, usually called by navigators Mintaon, being a corruption of the word Mantawei, which, as already explained, is appropriated to a race inhabiting the islands of Si Biru, Si Porah, and Pagi.  Batu, on the contrary, is chiefly peopled by a colony from Nias.  These pay a yearly tax to the raja of Buluaro, a small kampong in the interior part of the island, belonging to a race different from both, and whose number it is said amounts only to one hundred, which it is not allowed to exceed, so many children being reared as may replace the deaths.  They are reported to bear a resemblance to the people of Makasar or Bugis, and may have been adventurers from that quarter.  The influence of their raja over the Nias inhabitants, who exceed his immediate subjects in the proportion of twenty to one, is founded on the superstitious belief that the water of the island will become salt when they neglect to pay the tax.  He in his turn, being in danger from the power of the Malay traders who resort thither from Padang and are not affected by the same superstition, is constrained to pay them to the amount of sixteen ounces of gold as an annual tribute.

The food of the people, as in the other islands, is chiefly sago, and their exports coconuts, oil in considerable quantities, and swala or sea-slugs.  No rice is planted there, nor, if we may trust to the Malayan accounts, suffered to be imported.  Upon the same authority also we are told that the island derives its name of Batu from a large rock resembling the hull of a vessel, which tradition states to be a petrifaction of that in which the Buluaro people arrived.  The same fanciful story of a petrified boat is prevalent in the Serampei country of Sumatra.  From Natal Hill Pulo Batu is visible.  Like the islands already described it is entirely covered with wood.

PULO KAPINI.