Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/50

38 is endowed with a style of Oriental beauty by no means unattractive or to be despised. Their despotic king never allows any of his subjects to quit the country without his permission, and least of all, women. The British and others living in Burmah have not always had their eyes closed to the charms of the Burmese girls, and when they have had children by them they have experienced difficulties of the most extraordinary nature upon leaving the land in their attempts to take these and their mothers with them. Often fabulous fees have had to be paid to effect their removal. They are remarkably faithful to their masters, being affectionate, industrious, and extremely domestic. Those having these habits despise prostitution, for a prostitute among them is an outcast, while they in their own calling are not dishonored. In contrast with other parts of the East, the women of Burmah go about openly, and are not excluded from the sight of the men. They also have not a little to say in the community, even being able, with the proof of cruel treatment, to plead in court for a divorce, and this last, under such circumstances, is usually obtained without difficulty.

Leaving India now, and passing to the island of Sumatra, I desire to introduce an entirely different race of people; these are the Battaks and they are of great interest to the anthropologist from any point he may choose to consider them. Many books and descriptions have appeared about the Battaks, dating back before the middle of the present century. One writer tells us that it "is not known whether they were settled in Sumatra before the Hindu period. Their language contains words of Sanskrit origin, and others most readily referred to Javanese, Malay, Menangkabau, Macassar, Sundanese, Niasese, and Tagal influence." In 1866, when Prof. Albert S. Bickmore was traveling in Sumatra, he saw not a little of these people, and he believed then that the place where their aboriginal civilization sprang up was very likely on the shores of that famous Sumatran lake, Lake Toba, and upon the neighboring plateau of Silindong. From this locality they gradually occupied an extensive domain in the interior, which was extended upon either side to the seacoast. Eventually, however, the Malays spread along the coast line, and thus confined the Battaks once more to the interior.

Nearly twenty years later, Webster wrote that they occupied the country only to the southeast of Achin, the territory in the middle of which Lake Toba is situated. From all that I can gather upon the subject at the present time, it would appear that this curious race, although they are distinctly different from the typical Malay, these last-named people, together with the Achin