one of belief in the One Eternal God, laid by Arab pirates centuries
ago, amid the lust of rapine and the smoke of war, which ever heralded
the onward march of conquering Islam, should serve as a firm basis for
building up these simple children of Nature into the mystical sanctuary
of the Christian Church. The lapse of time obliterates countless
landmarks of Moslem creed in localities removed from external contact,
but amid the dust of disintegrating forces and forgotten forms, the
central Truth remains imbedded, like a wedge of gold trodden in the
mire, but retaining intrinsic value and untarnishable purity.

SUMATRA.

THE WESTERN COAST AND THE HIGHLANDS.

Passing through the straits of Saleir, between a cliff-bound island and
the south-eastern Cape of Celebes, the returning steamer in due time
reaches her moorings in Sourabaya, and a rapid railway journey through
Java connects with the outgoing boat from Batavia to Padang, a three
days' voyage through a chain of green islands breaking the force of the
monsoon on a desolate and harbourless shore. The forest-clad ranges of
Sumatra draw nearer at Benkoelen, buried in cocoa-palms on the rim of a
quiet bay, within a terrific reef which makes landing impossible in
stormy weather. Fort and Residency, villas and gardens, manifest
Benkoelen as an oasis of civilisation, the steeply-tiled roofs
remaining as relics of the English occupation a century ago. Beyond
the little military settlement, the Sumatran mountains tower in
majestic gloom beyond a broken line of bristling crags, like granite
outworks guarding the eleven hundred miles of coast-line facing the
Indian Ocean. The rugged backbone of mysterious Sumatra, descending
sharply to the western sea, overlooks a vast alluvial plain on the
eastern side, where rice and sugar-cane, coffee and tobacco, flourish
between the wide deltas of sluggish rivers, though rushing streams and
wild cascades characterise the opposite shore. Ridges and bastions of
rock, above profound valleys, culminate in cloud-capped Indrapura, at a
height of 12,000 feet. Geologists affirm the vast age of Sumatra,
indicated by the Silurian rock, the bastions of granite, the
extraordinary vegetation fossilised in the huge coal-beds, and the
sandstone formation, often a thousand feet thick, carved by time and
weather into fantastic ravines. Inexhaustible mineral wealth lies
hidden in these weird ranges, together with the costly chemical
products