less and less pure, until at length it became quite
unintelligible, although the continual recurrence of many well-known
words assured me it was a form of Malay, and enabled me to guess at the
main subject of conversation. This district had a very bad reputation
a few years ago, and travellers were frequently robbed and murdered.
Fights between village and village were also of frequent occurrence, and
many lives were lost, owing to disputes about boundaries or intrigues
with women. Now, however, since the country has been divided into
districts under "Controlleurs," who visit every village in turn to hear
complaints and settle disputes, such things are heard of no more. This
is one of the numerous examples I have met with of the good effects of
the Dutch Government. It exercises a strict surveillance over its most
distant possessions, establishes a form of government well adapted to
the character of the people, reforms abuses, punishes crimes, and makes
itself everywhere respected by the native population.

Lobo Raman is a central point of the east end of Sumatra, being about a
hundred and twenty miles from the sea to the east, north, and west. The
surface is undulating, with no mountains or even hills, and there is
no rock, the soil being generally a red pliable clay. Numbers of small
streams and rivers intersect the country, and it is pretty equally
divided between open clearings and patches of forest, both virgin and
second growth, with abundance of fruit trees; and there is no lack of
paths to get about in any direction. Altogether it is the very country
that would promise most for a naturalist, and I feel sure that at a more
favourable time of year it would prove exceedingly rich; but it was
now the rainy season, when, in the very best of localities, insects are
always scarce, and there being no fruit on the trees, there was also a
scarcity of birds. During a month's collecting, I added only three or
four new species to my list of birds, although I obtained very fine
specimens of many which were rare and interesting. In butterflies I was
rather more successful, obtaining several fine species quite new to me,
and a considerable number of very rare and beautiful insects. I will
give here some account of two species of butterflies, which, though
very common in collections, present us with peculiarities of the highest
interest.

The first is the handsome Papilio memnon, a splendid butterfly of a deep
black colour, do