I therefore moved on another stage to Lobo Raman, where the guard-house is situated quite by itself in the forest, nearly a mile from each of three villages.

This was very agreeable to me, as I could move about without having every motion watched by crowds of men, women and children, and I had also a much greater variety of walks to each of the villages and the plantations around them.
The villages of the Sumatran Malays are somewhat peculiar and very picturesque.

A space of some acres is surrounded with a high fence, and over this area the houses are thickly strewn without the least attempt at regularity.

Tall cocoa-nut trees grow abundantly between them, and the ground is bare and smooth with the trampling of many feet.

The houses are raised about six feet on posts, the best being entirely built of planks, others of bamboo.