. Java and her neighbours; a traveller's notes in Java Celebes, the Moluccas and Sumatra . quare, the monument to GeneralMichaelis (killed in the Bali war in 1849), thewater-front promenade, and the Apenburg orApe Hill, with its scores of half-tame apes, are theonly noteworthy features of this city of over 90,000inhabitants, the capital of the Residency of thePadang Lowlands. During our stop of a day in Padang, in wander-ings about the streets in a vain effort to obtaina temporary respite from the attentions of thehotel mosquitoes, I chanced on several ratherunusual city sights: men carrying a
. Java and her neighbours; a traveller's notes in Java Celebes, the Moluccas and Sumatra . quare, the monument to GeneralMichaelis (killed in the Bali war in 1849), thewater-front promenade, and the Apenburg orApe Hill, with its scores of half-tame apes, are theonly noteworthy features of this city of over 90,000inhabitants, the capital of the Residency of thePadang Lowlands. During our stop of a day in Padang, in wander-ings about the streets in a vain effort to obtaina temporary respite from the attentions of thehotel mosquitoes, I chanced on several ratherunusual city sights: men carrying about fightingquails (the Malay substitute in the islands for thefighting cocks of more northerly peoples), the birdsbeing in cages and hidden from view by elaboratelyembroidered and heavily tinselled cloth covers; aspecimen of that grotesque creature, the poe-kang; and one large constrictor snake. Thepoekang was chained to a perch and offered meby his boy owner for a few guilders. The animalis a sort of lemur, I think, and about the size of asmall monkey. It somewhat resembles a marmo-. WEST COAST OF SUMATRA 301 set, has grey-brown fur, a quaint head with popeyes and prominent ears, a long tail, bushy atthe end, and an extremely nervous curious Httle beasts are said to make goodpets. The snake that we saw was about seven feetlong. He had been dragged by small native boysfrom his place of hiding in the undergrowth of anunoccupied compound and was being cruelly teasedwith that lack of feeling which characterizes thetreatment of snakes the world over. It seemedcurious to see, here in a main street of the Euro-pean quarter of Padang, the first snake that we hadseen in even a partial state of freedom during allour weeks of travel in lands where these reptiles arethought to be so common. It is hard to realizethat in these regions of the equator the jungle soquickly reclaims its own that an imoccupied andiincared-for private compound in the centre of acity may in a few
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