y 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.

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 cu