Between Pulo Batu and the coast of Sumatra, but much nearer to the latter, is a small uninhabited island, called Pulo Kapini (iron-wood island), but to which our charts (copying from Valentyn) commonly give the name of Batu, whilst to Batu itself, as above described, is assigned the name of Mintaon.  In confirmation of the distinctions here laid down it will be thought sufficient to observe that, when the Company’s packet, the Greyhound, lay at what was called Lant’s Bay in Mintaon, an officer came to our settlement of Natal (of which Mr. John Marsden at that time was chief) in a Batu oil-boat; and that a large trade for oil is carried on from Padang and other places with the island of Batu, whilst that of Kapini is known to be without inhabitants, and could not supply the article.

PULO NIAS.

The most productive and important, if not the largest of this chain of islands, is Pulo Nias.  Its inhabitants are very numerous, and of a race distinct not only from those on the main (for such we must relatively consider Sumatra), but also from the people of all the islands to the southward, with the exception of the last-mentioned.  Their complexions, especially the women, are lighter than those of the Malays; they are smaller in their persons and shorter in stature; their mouths are broad, noses very flat, and their ears are pierced and distended in so extraordinary a manner as nearly, in many instances, to touch the shoulders, particularly when the flap has, by excessive distension or by accident, been rent asunder; but these pendulous excrescences are commonly trimmed and reduced to the ordinary size when they are brought away from their own country.  Preposterous however as this custom may appear, it is not confined to the Nias people.  Some of the women of the inland parts of Sumatra, in the vicinity of the equinoctial line (especially those of the Rau tribes) increase the perforation of their ears until they admit ornaments of two or three inches diameter.  There is no circumstance by which the natives of this island are more obviously distinguished than the prevalence of a leprous scurf with which the skins of a great proportion of both sexes are affected; in some cases covering the whole of the body and limbs, and in others resembling rather the effect of the tetter or ringworm, running like that partial complaint in waving lines and concentric curves.  It is seldom if ever radically cured, although by external applications (especially in the slighter cases) its symptoms are moderated, and a temporary smoothness given to the skin; but it does not seem in any stage of the disease to have a tendency to shorten life, or to be inconsistent with perfect health in other respects, nor is there reason to suppose it infectious; and it is remarkable that the inhabitants of Pulo Batu, who are evidently of the same race, are exempt from this cutaneous malady.  The principal food of the common people is the sweet-potato, but much pork is also eaten by those who can afford it, and the chiefs make a practice of ornamenting their houses with the jaws of the hogs, as well as the skulls of the enemies whom they slay.  The cultivation of rice has become extensive in modern times, but rather as an article of traffic than of home consumption.