After many inquiries, I found that a day's journey by water above
Palembang there commenced a military road which extended up to the
mountains and even across to Bencoolen, and I determined to take this
route and travel on until I found some tolerable collecting ground.
By this means I should secure dry land and a good road, and avoid the
rivers, which at this season are very tedious to ascend owing to the
powerful currents, and very unproductive to the collector owing to most
of the lands in their vicinity being underwater. Leaving early in the
morning we did not reach Lorok, the village where the road begins, until
late at night. I stayed there a few days, but found that almost all the
ground in the vicinity not underwater was cultivated, and that the only
forest was in swamps which were now inaccessible. The only bird new
to me which I obtained at Lorok was the fine long-tailed parroquet
(Palaeornis longicauda). The people here assured me that the country was
just the same as this for a very long way--more than a week's journey,
and they seemed hardly to have any conception of an elevated forest-clad
country, so that I began to think it would be useless going on, as the
time at my disposal was too short to make it worth my while to spend
much more of it in moving about. At length, however, I found a man who
knew the country, and was more intelligent; and he at once told me that
if I wanted forest I must go to the district of Rembang, which I found
on inquiry was about twenty-five or thirty miles off.
The road is divided into regular stages of ten or twelve miles each,
and, without sending on in advance to have coolies ready, only this
distance can be travelled in a day. At each station there are houses for
the accommodation of passengers, with cooking-house and stables, and six
or eight men always on guard. There is an established system for coolies
at fixed rates, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages all taking
their turn to be subject to coolie service, as well as that of guards at
the station for five days at a time. This arrangement makes travelling
very easy, and was a great convenience for me. I had a pleasant walk of
ten or twelve miles in the morning, and the rest of the day could stroll
about and explore the village and neighbourhood, having a house ready
to occupy without any formalities whatever. In three days I reached
Moera-dua, the first village in Rembang, and finding the country dry and
undulating, with a good sprinkling of forest, I determined to remain a
short time and try the neighbourhood. Just opposite the station was a
small but deep river, and a good bathing-place; and beyond the village
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