Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/386

324 we had made the preceding day upon the small horses common in this island. Their very hard trot galled us the more, as the saddles we were obliged to make use of were not stuffed, but consisted of a very hard kind of wood, with a thick piece of skin glued on for their only covering. Besides, the Javanese stirrups were too short for us, and could not be lowered, which rendered our posture extremely uneasy. We therefore went very little from our habitation during this day, but on the following (15th), we passed over a plain about 2,500 toises in length, and for the greater part already covered with water, before we arrived at the mountains of Prau. The Tomagon of Banguil came to this place on horseback, accompanied by upwards of a hundred attendants, very well mounted. We found him in the forest, where he waited for us; but, having probably very little idea of the simple mode in which naturalists choose to travel, he had made his men bring chairs with them for us to sit down upon at the top of one of the mountains, from whence we had a view through the trees of a great extent of country, which he told us was all in his dependency; and, to impress it the more strongly upon our minds, he immediately ordered the tops of several tek-trees to be struck off; but we saw with regret more than a hundred feet of