The Governor was
persuaded. He ordered a small force to be equipped, and meantime the
Controleur returned to his station.

It was a rare opportunity for Ericsson. He begged permission to accompany
his new friend, who good-naturedly presented him to the Governor. An
historian may be allowed to say that the hero of this narrative is fat,
and there is no offence in supposing that the most exalted functionary has
a sense of humour. His Excellency appears to have been tickled. The
cannibals would rage with disappointment in beholding this succulent
mortal--beyond their reach. He laughed and consented. I have no details of
the expedition striking enough to be set down in a brief chronicle like
this. It was a slow and toilsome march through jungle and mountain passes,
the Barizan range, where a score of determined men might have stopped an
army. The Achinese proved that; they held the force at bay for hours in a
gorge, though less than a score. But the Battas would not fight even when
their capital was reached, on Lake Toba. The Rajahs submitted, paid an
indemnity, gave hostages, yielded up the surviving victims, and undertook
to have no more dealings with the Achinese. So the matter ended. Ericsson
found some new plants in their country, and many old well worth
collecting. Doubtless the results would have been far more important could
he have wandered freely. But those demons of Achin hung upon the line of
march, joyously sacrificing their own lives to kill a Dutchman. If his
personal adventures were not so curious, however--perhaps I should rather
say so dramatic--that I could single out one of them, Ericsson gained much
information about an extraordinary people. I can only set down a few
facts.

He says that the Battas themselves do not regard their cannibalism as an
immemorial practice. They have a story, not worth repeating, to account
for it. But I may observe that if Marco Polo's 'kingdom of Mangi, called
Concha,' lay in those parts, as geographers believe, some race of the
neighbourhood was cannibal in the thirteenth century. 'They commonly eat
men's flesh, if the person die not of sickness, as better tasted than
others.' That is the motive still--the only one adduced--mere liking.
Elsewhere the practice may be due to superstition in one form or another;
among the Battas it is simply _gourmandise_. The head Rajah questioned
gave a matter-of-fact answer. 'You Dutch eat pig,' said he, 'because you
like it; we eat man be