Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

110 AUSTR/U.ASIA.the foot of Mount Merapi iu the Agam district. In case of foreign invasionthis place would at once become the strategic and administrative centre of the wholeisland. In the vicinity is the Karbawen-gat Gorge, whose rocky walls have beenexcavated to a depth of 500 feet in the thickness of the plateau.Padang-Pdujang, another large place, where most of the Dutch officials reside,occupies the edge of the plateau at the west foot of Merapi. On another slope areseen the ruins of Priangan, formerly capital of the Menangkabao empire. Pajn-Kombo, capital of the "Fifty Kotas," lies much farther to the east on the oppositeside of Mount Sago. This district is the Sumatran " earthly Eden," where thecultivated plants of the temperate zone flourish side bj' side with those of thetropics. Here were also situated the gold mines, which at one time madeSumatra famous throughout the East, but which are now abandoned. The depositsof magnetic iron, however, are still utilised, which occur in the neighbourhood of41. Highlands East of Padang.Scile 1 : 750,000.