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
thick. In the sapiyau or building in which the raj