(MARCH TO MAY 1857.)
MY boat was at length ready, and having obtained two men besides my own
servants, after an enormous amount of talk and trouble, we left Dobbo on
the morning of March 13th, for the mainland of Aru. By noon we reached
the mouth of a small river or creek, which we ascended, winding among
mangrove, swamps, with here and there a glimpse of dry land. In two
hours we reached a house, or rather small shed, of the most miserable
description, which our steersman, the "Orang-kaya" of Wamma, said was
the place we were to stay at, and where he had assured me we could get
every kind of bird and beast to be found in Aru. The shed was occupied
by about a dozen men, women, and children; two cooking fires were
burning in it, and there seemed little prospect of my obtaining
any accommodation. I however deferred inquiry till I had seen the
neighbouring forest, and immediately started off with two men, net, and
guns, along a path at the back of the house. In an hour's walk I saw
enough to make me determine to give the place a trial, and on my return,
finding the "Orang-kaya" was in a strong fever-fit and unable to do
anything, I entered into negotiations with the owner of the house for
the use of a slip at one end of it about five feet wide, for a week,
and agreed to pay as rent one "parang," or chopping-knife. I then
immediately got my boxes and bedding out of the boat, hung up a shelf
for my bird-skins and insects, and got all ready for work next morning.
My own boys slept in the boat to guard the remainder of my property; a
cooking place sheltered by a few mats was arranged under a tree close
by, and I felt that degree of satisfaction and enjoyment which I always
experience when, after much trouble and delay, I am on the point of
beginning work in a new locality.
One of my first objects was to inquire for the people who are accustomed
to shoot the Paradise birds. They lived at some distance in the jungle,
and a man was sent to call them. When they arrived, we had a talk by
means of the "Orang-kaya" as interpreter, and they said they thought
they could get some. They explained that they shoot the birds with a bow
and arrow, the arrow having a conical wooden cap fitted to the end as
large as a teacup, so as to kill the bird by the violence of the blow
without making any wound or shedding any blood. The trees frequented
by the birds are very lofty; it is therefore necessary to erect a small
leafy covering or hut among the branches, to which the hunter mounts
before daylight in the morning and remains the whole day, and whenever
a bird alights they are almost sure of securing it. (See Frontispiece.)
They returned to their homes the same evening, and I never saw anything
more of them, owing, as I afterwards found, to its being too early to
obtain birds in good plumage.
The first two or three days of our stay here were very wet, and I
obtained but few insects or birds, but at length, when I was beginning
to despair, my boy Baderoon returned one day with a specimen which
repaid me for months of delay and expectation. It was a small bird a
little less than a thrush. The greater part of its plumage was of an
intense cinnabar red, with a gloss as of spun glass. On the head the
feathers became short and velvety, and shaded into rich orange. Beneath,
from the breast downwards, was pure white, with the softness and gloss
of silk, and across the breast a band of deep metallic green separated
this colour from the red of the throat. Above each eye was a round spot
of the same metallic green; the bill was yellow, and the feet and legs
were of a fine cobalt óille, strikingly contrasting with all the other
parts of the body. Merely in arrangement of colours and texture of
plumage this little bird was a gem of the first water, yet there
comprised only half its strange beauty. Springing from each side of
the breast, and ordinarily lying concealed under the wings, were little
tufts of greyish feathers about two inches long, and each terminated by
a broad band of intense emerald green. These plumes can be raised at the
will of the bird, and spread out into a pair of elegant fans when the
wings are elevated. But this is not the only ornament. The two middle
feathers of the tail are in the form of slender wires about five inches
long, and which diverge in a beautiful double curve. About half an inch
of the end of this wire is webbed on the outer side only, awe coloured
of a fine metallic green, and being curled spirally inwards form a pair
of elegant glittering buttons, hanging five inches below the body, and
the same distance apart. These two ornaments, the breast fans and the
spiral tipped tail wires, are altogether unique, not occurring on any
other species of the eight thousand different birds that are known to
exist upon the earth; and, combined with the most exquisite beauty of
plumage, render this one of the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely
productions of nature. My transports of admiration and delight quite
amused my Aru hosts, who saw nothing more in the "Burong raja" than we
do in the robin of the goldfinch.
Thus one of my objects in coming to the far fast was accomplished. I
had obtained a specimen of the King Bird of Paradise (Paradisea regia),
which had been described by Linnaeus from skins preserved in a mutilated
state by the natives. I knew how few Europeans had ever beheld the
perfect little organism I now gazed upon, and how very imperfectly
it was still known in Europe. The emotions excited in the minds of a
naturalist, who has long desired to see the actual thing which he has
hitherto known only by description, drawing, or badly-preserved external
covering--especially when that thing is of surpassing rarity and beauty,
require the poetic faculty fully to express them. The remote island in
which I found myself situated, in an almost unvisited sea, far from
the tracks of merchant fleets and navies; the wild luxuriant tropical
forest, which stretched far away on every side; the rude uncultured
savages who gathered round me,--all had their influence in determining
the emotions with which I gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought
of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations of
this little creature had run their course--year by year being born, and
living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent
eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance such a wanton waste
of beauty. Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad, that
on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and
exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for
ages yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand,
should civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral,
intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin
forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced
relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance,
and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful
structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This
consideration must surely tell us that all living things were _not_
made for man. Many of them have no relation to him. The cycle of their
existence has gone on independently of his, and is disturbed or broken
by every advance in man's intellectual development; and their happiness
and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence,
their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately
related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone, limited only by
the equal well-being and perpetuation of the numberless other organisms
with which each is more or less intimately connected.
After the first king-bird was obtained, I went with my men into the
forest, and we were not only rewarded with another in equally perfect
plumage, but I was enabled to see a little of the habits of both it
and the larger species. It frequents the lower trees of the less dense
forests: and is very active, flying strongly with a whirring sound,
and continually hopping or flying from branch to branch. It eats hard
stone-bearing fruits as large as a gooseberry, and often flutters its
wings after the manner of the South American manakins, at which time
it elevates and expands the beautiful fans with which its breast is
adorned. The natives of Aru call it "Goby-goby."
One day I get under a tree where a number of the Great Paradise birds
were assembled, but they were high up in the thickest of the foliage,
and flying and jumping about so continually that I could get no good
view of them. At length I shot one, but it was a young specimen, and was
entirely of a rich chocolate-brown colour, without either the metallic
green throat or yellow plumes of the full-grown bird. All that I had yet
seen resembled this, and the natives told me that it would be about
two months before any would be found in full plumage. I still hoped,
therefore, to get some. Their voice is most extraordinary. At early
morn, before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of "Wawk-wawk-wawk,
wók-wók-wók," which resounds through the forest, changing its direction
continually. This is the Great Bird of Paradise going to seek his
breakfast. Others soon follow his example; lories and parroquets cry
shrilly, cockatoos scream, king-hunters croak and bark, and the various
smaller birds chirp and whistle their morning song. As I lie listening
to these interesting sounds, I realize my position as the first European
who has ever lived for months together in the Aru islands, a place which
I had hoped rather than expected ever to visit. I think how many besides
my self have longed to reach these almost fairy realms, and to see with
their own eyes the many wonderful and beautiful things which I am daily
encountering. But now Ali and Baderoon are up and getting ready their
guns and ammunition, and little Brio has his fire lighted and is boiling
my coffee, and I remember that I had a black cockatoo brought in late
last night, which I must skin immediately, and so I jump up and begin my
day's work very happily.
This cockatoo is the first I have seen, and is a great prize. It has
a rather small and weak body, long weak legs, large wings, and an
enormously developed head, ornamented with a magnificent crest, and
armed with a sharp-pointed hoofed bill of immense size and strength. The
plumage is entirely black, but has all over it the curious powdery white
secretion characteristic of cockatoo. The cheeks are bare, and of an
intense blood-red colour. Instead of the harsh scream of the white
cockatoos, its voice is a somewhat plaintive whistle. The tongue is a
curious organ, being a slender fleshy cylinder of a deep red colour,
terminated by a horny black plate, furrowed across and somewhat
prehensile. The whole tongue has a considerable extensile power. I will
here relate something of the habits of this bird, with which I have
since become acquainted. It frequents the lower parts of the forest, and
is seen singly, or at most two or three together. It flies slowly and
noiselessly, and may be killed by a comparatively slight wound. It eats
various fruits and seeds, but seems more particularly attached to the
kernel of the kanary-nut, which grows on a lofty forest tree (Canarium
commune), abundant in the islands where this bird is found; and the
manner in which it gets at these seeds shows a correlation of structure
and habits, which would point out the "kanary" as its special food. The
shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will
crack it; it is somewhat triangular, and the outside is quite smooth.
The manner in which the bird opens these nuts is very curious. Taking
one endways in its bill and keeping it firm by a pressure of the tongue,
it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged
lower mandible. This done, it takes hold of the nut with its foot, and
biting off a piece of leaf retains it in the deep notch of the upper
mandible, and again seizing the nut, which is prevented from slipping by
the elastic tissue of the leaf, fixes the edge of the lower mandible in
the notch, and by a powerful nip breaks of a piece of the shell, again
taking the nut in its claws, it inserts the very long and sharp point
of the bill and picks out the kernel, which is seized hold of, morsel
by morsel, by the extensible tongue. Thus every detail of form and
structure in the extraordinary bill of this bird seems to have its use,
and we may easily conceive that the black cockatoos have maintained
themselves in competition with their more active and more numerous white
allies, by their power of existing on a kind of food which no other bird
is able to extract from its stony shell. The species is the Microglossum
aterrimum of naturalists.
During the two weeks which I spent in this little settlement, I had good
opportunities of observing the natives at their own home, and living in
their usual manner. There is a great monotony and uniformity in everyday
savage life, and it seemed to me a more miserable existence than when it
had the charm of novelty. To begin with the most important fact in
the existence of uncivilized peoples--their food--the Aru men have no
regular supply, no staff of life, such as bread, rice, mandiocca, maize,
or sago, which are the daily food of a large proportion of mankind.
They have, however, many sorts of vegetables, plantains, yams, sweet
potatoes, and raw sago; and they chew up vast quantities of sugar-cane,
as well as betel-nuts, gambir, and tobacco. Those who live on the coast
have plenty of fish; but when inland, as we are here, they only go to
the sea occasionally, and then bring home cockles and other shell-fish
by the boatload. Now and then they get wild pig or kangaroo, but too
rarely to form anything like a regular part of their diet, which is
essentially vegetable; and what is of more importance, as affecting
their health, green, watery vegetables, imperfectly cooked, and even
these in varying and often in sufficient quantities. To this diet may be
attributed the prevalence of skin diseases, and ulcers on the legs and
joints. The scurfy skin disease so common among savages has a close
connexion with the poorness and irregularity of their living. The
Malays, who are never without their daily rice, are generally free from
it; the hill-Dyaks of Borneo, who grow rice and live well, are clean
skinned while the less industrious and less cleanly tribes, who live for
a portion of the year on fruits and vegetables only, are very subject to
this malady. It seems clear that in this, as in other respects, man
is not able to make a beast of himself with impunity, feeding like the
cattle on the herbs and fruits of the earth, and taking no thought of
the morrow. To maintain his health and beauty he must labour to prepare
some farinaceous product capable of being stored and accumulated, so as
to give him a regular supply of wholesome food. When this is obtained,
he may add vegetables, fruits, and meat with advantage.
The chief luxury of the Aru people, besides betel and tobacco, is arrack
(Java rum), which the traders bring in great quantities and sell very
cheap. A day's fishing or rattan cutting will purchase at least a
half-gallon bottle; and when the tripang or birds' nests collected
during a season are sold, they get whole boxes, each containing fifteen
such bottles, which the inmates of a house will sit round day and night
till they have finished. They themselves tell me that at such bouts they
often tear to pieces the house they are in, break and destroy everything
they can lay their hands on, and make such an infernal riot as is
alarming to behold.
The houses and furniture are on a par with the food. A rude shed,
supported on rough and slender sticks rather than posts, no walls,
but the floor raised to within a foot of the eaves, is the style of
architecture they usually adopt. Inside there are partition walls of
thatch, forming little boxes or sleeping places, to accommodate the
two or three separate families that usually live together. A few mats,
baskets, and cooking vessels, with plates and basins purchased from the
Macassar traders, constitute their whole furniture; spears and bows
are their weapons; a sarong or mat forms the clothing of the women, a
waistcloth of the men. For hours or even for days they sit idle in their
houses, the women bringing in the vegetables or sago which form their
food. Sometimes they hunt or fish a little, or work at their houses or
canoes, but they seem to enjoy pure idleness, and work as little as they
can. They have little to vary the monotony of life, little that can be
called pleasure, except idleness and conversation. And they certainly
do talk! Every evening there is a little Babel around me: but as I
understand not a word of it, I go on with my book or work undisturbed.
Now and then they scream and shout, or laugh frantically for variety;
and this goes on alternately with vociferous talking of men, women, and
children, till long after I am in my mosquito curtain and sound asleep.
At this place I obtained some light on the complicated mixture of
races in Aru, which would utterly confound an ethnologist. Many of the
natives, though equally dark with the others, have little of the Papuan
physiognomy, but have more delicate features of the European type, with
more glossy, curling hair: These at first quite puzzled me, for they
have no more resemblance to Malay than to Papuan, and the darkness of
skin and hair would forbid the idea of Dutch intermixture. Listening to
their conversation, however, I detected some words that were familiar
to me. "Accabó" was one; and to be sure that it was not an accidental
resemblance, I asked the speaker in Malay what "accabó" meant, and
was told it meant "done or finished," a true Portuguese word, with its
meaning retained. Again, I heard the word "jafui" often repeated, and
could see, without inquiry, that its meaning was "he's gone," as in
Portuguese. "Porco," too, seems a common name, though the people have no
idea of its European meaning. This cleared up the difficulty. I at once
understood that some early Portuguese traders had penetrated to these
islands, and mixed with the natives, influencing their language,
and leaving in their descendants for many generations the visible
characteristics of their race. If to this we add the occasional mixture
of Malay, Dutch, and Chinese with the indigenous Papuans, we have
no reason to wonder at the curious varieties of form and feature
occasionally to be met with in Aru. In this very house there was a
Macassar man, with an Aru wife and a family of mixed children. In Dobbo
I saw a Javanese and an Amboyna man, each with an Aru wife and family;
and as this kind of mixture has been going on for at least three hundred
years, and probably much longer, it has produced a decided effect on the
physical characteristics of a considerable portion of the population of
the islands, more especially in Dobbo and the parts nearest to it.
March 28th.--The "Orang-kaya" being very ill with fever had begged to go
home, and had arranged with one of the men of the house to go on with me
as his substitute. Now that I wanted to move, the bugbear of the pirates
was brought up, and it was pronounced unsafe to go further than the next
small river. This world not suit me, as I had determined to traverse the
channel called Watelai to the "blakang-tana;" but my guide was firm
in his dread of pirates, of which I knew there was now no danger, as
several vessels had gone in search of them, as well as a Dutch gunboat
which had arrived since I left Dobbo. I had, fortunately, by this time
heard that the Dutch "Commissie" had really arrived, and therefore
threatened that if my guide did not go with me immediately, I would
appeal to the authorities, and he would certainly be obliged to gig
a back the cloth which the "Orang-kaya" had transferred to him in
prepayment. This had the desired effect; matters were soon arranged, and
we started the next morning. The wind, however, was dead against us,
and after rowing hard till midday we put in to a small river where
there were few huts, to cook our dinners. The place did not look very
promising, but as we could not reach our destination, the Watelai river,
owing to the contrary wind, I thought we might as well wait here a day
or two. I therefore paid a chopper for the use of a small shed, and
got my bed and some boxes on shore. In the evening, after dark, we were
suddenly alarmed by the cry of "Bajak! bajak!" (Pirates!) The men all
seized their bows and spears, and rushed down to the beach; we got hold
of our guns and prepared for action, but in a few minutes all came back
laughing and chattering, for it had proved to be only a small boat and
some of their own comrades returned from fishing. When all was quiet
again, one of the men, who could speak a little Malay, came to me and
begged me not to sleep too hard. "Why?" said I. "Perhaps the pirates may
really come," said he very seriously, which made me laugh and assure him
I should sleep as hard as I could.
Two days were spent here, but the place was unproductive of insects or
birds of interest, so we made another attempt to get on. As soon as we
got a little away from the land we had a fair wind, and in six hours'
sailing reached the entrance of the Watelai channel, which divides the
most northerly from the middle portion of Aru. At its mouth this was
about half a mile wide, but soon narrowed, and a mile or two on it
assumed entirely the aspect of a river about the width of the Thames at
London, winding among low but undulating and often hilly country.
The scene was exactly such as might be expected in the interior of
a continent. The channel continued of a uniform average width, with
reaches and sinuous bends, one bank being often precipitous, or even
forming vertical cliffs, while the other was flat and apparently
alluvial; and it was only the pure salt-water, and the absence of any
stream but the slight flux and reflux of the tide, that would enable a
person to tell that he was navigating a strait and not a river. The
wind was fair, and carried us along, with occasional assistance from our
oars, till about three in the afternoon, when we landed where a little
brook formed two or three basins in the coral rock, and then fell in a
miniature cascade into the salt water river. Here we bathed and cooked
our dinner, and enjoyed ourselves lazily till sunset, when we pursued
our way for two hours snore, and then moored our little vessel to an
overhanging tree for the night.
At five the next morning we started again, and in an hour overtook four
large praus containing the "Commissie," who had come from Dobbo to make
their official tour round the islands, and had passed us in the eight. I
paid a visit to the Dutchmen, one of whom spoke a little English, but
we found that we could get on much better with Malay. They told me that
they had been delayed going after the pirates to one of the northern
islands, and had seen three of their vessels but could not catch them,
because on being pursued they rowed out in the wind's eye, which they
are enabled to do by having about fifty oars to each boat. Having had
some tea with thorn, I bade them adieu, and turned up a narrow channel
which our pilot said would take us to the village of Watelai, on the
west side of Are. After going some miles we found the channel nearly
blocked up with coral, so that our boat grated along the bottom,
crunching what may truly be called the living rock. Sometimes all hands
had to get out and wade, to lighten the vessel and lift it over the
shallowest places; but at length we overcame all obstacles and reached a
wide bay or estuary studded with little rocks and islets, and opening
to the western sea and the numerous islands of the "blakang-tuna." I now
found that the village we were going to was miles away; that we should
have to go out to sea, and round a rocky point. A squall seemed coming
on, and as I have a horror of small boats at sea, and from all I could
learn Watelai village was not a place to stop at (no birds of Paradise
being found there), I determined to return and go to a village I had
heard of up a tributary of the Watelai river, and situated nearly in the
centre of the mainland of Aru. The people there were said to be good,
and to be accustomed to hunting and bird-catching, being too far inland
to get any part of their food from the sea. While I was deciding this
point the squall burst upon us, and soon raised a rolling sea in the
shallow water, which upset an oil bottle and a lamp, broke some of my
crockery, and threw us all into confusion. Rowing hard we managed to get
back into the main river by dusk, and looked out for a place to cook
our suppers. It happened to be high water, and a very high tide, so that
every piece of sand or beach was covered, and it was with the greatest
difficulty, and after much groping in the dark, that we discovered a
little sloping piece of rock about two feet square on which to make a
fire and cook some rice. The next day we continued our way back, and
on the following day entered a stream on the south side of the Watelai
river, and ascending to where navigation ceased found the little village
of Wanumbai, consisting of two large houses surrounded by plantations,
amid the virgin forests of Aru.
As I liked the look of the place, and was desirous of staying some time,
I sent my pilot to try and make a bargain for house accommodation. The
owner and chief man of the place made many excuses. First, he was afraid
I would not like his house, and then was doubtful whether his son,
who was away, would like his admitting me. I had a long talk with him
myself, and tried to explain what I was doing, and how many things I
would buy of them, and showed him my stock of heads, and knives, and
cloth, and tobacco, all of which I would spend with his family and
friends if he would give me house-room. He seemed a little staggered at
this, and said he, would talk to his wife, and in the meantime I went
for a little walk to see the neighbourhood. When I came back, I again
sent my pilot, saying that I would go away if he would not dive me part
of his house. In about half an hour he returned with a demand for about
half the cost of building a house, for the rent of a small portion of it
for a few weeks. As the only difficulty now was a pecuniary one, I got
out about ten yards of cloth, an axe, with a few beads and some tobacco,
and sent them as my final offer for the part of the house which I had
before pointed out. This was accepted after a little more talk, and I
immediately proceeded to take possession.
The house was a good large one, raised as usual about seven feet on
posts, the walls about three or four feet more, with a high-pitched
roof. The floor was of bamboo laths, and in the sloping roof way an
immense shutter, which could be lifted and propped up to admit light
and air. At the end where this was situated the floor was raised about a
foot, and this piece, about ten feet wide by twenty long, quite open to
the rest of the house, was the portion I was to occupy. At one end of
this piece, separated by a thatch partition, was a cooking place, with
a clay floor and shelves for crockery. At the opposite end I had my
mosquito curtain hung, and round the walls we arranged my boxes and
other stores, fated up a table and seat, and with a little cleaning and
dusting made the place look quite comfortable. My boat was then hauled
up on shore, and covered with palm-leaves, the sails and oars brought
indoors, a hanging-stage for drying my specimens erected outside the
house and another inside, and my boys were set to clean their gnus and
get all ready for beginning work.
The next day I occupied myself in exploring the paths in the immediate
neighbourhood. The small river up which we had ascended ceases to be
navigable at this point, above which it is a little rocky brook, which
quite dries up in the hot season. There was now, however, a fair stream
of water in it; and a path which was partly in and partly by the side of
the water, promised well for insects, as I here saw the magnificent
blue butterfly, Papilio ulysses, as well as several other fine species,
flopping lazily along, sometimes resting high up on the foliage which
drooped over the water, at others settling down on the damp rock or on
the edges of muddy pools. A little way on several paths branched off
through patches of second-growth forest to cane-fields, gardens, and
scattered houses, beyond which again the dark wall of verdure striped
with tree-trunks, marked out the limits of the primeval forests. The
voices of many birds promised good shooting, and on my return I found
that my boys had already obtained two or three kinds I had not seen
before; and in the evening a native brought me a rare and beautiful
species of ground-thrush (Pitta novaeguinaeae) hitherto only known from
New Guinea.
As I improved my acquaintance with them I became much interested in
these people, who are a fair sample of the true savage inhabitants of
the Aru Islands, tolerably free from foreign admixture. The house I
lived in contained four or five families, and there were generally
from six to a dozen visitors besides. They kept up a continual row
from morning till night--talking, laughing, shouting, without
intermission--not very pleasant, but interesting as a study of national
character. My boy Ali said to me, "Banyak quot bitchara Orang Aru" (The
Aru people are very strong talkers), never having been accustomed to
such eloquence either in his own or any other country he had hitherto
visited. Of an evening the men, having got over their first shyness,
began to talk to me a little, asking about my country, &c., and in
return I questioned them about any traditions they had of their own
origin. I had, however, very little success, for I could not possibly
make them understand the simple question of where the Aru people first
came from. I put it in every possible way to them, but it was a subject
quite beyond their speculations; they had evidently never thought of
anything of the kind, and were unable to conceive a thing so remote and
so unnecessary to be thought about, as their own origin. Finding this
hopeless, I asked if they knew when the trade with Aru first began, when
the Bugis and Chinese and Macassar men first came in their praus to buy
tripang and tortoise-shell, and birds' nests, and Paradise birds?
This they comprehended, but replied that there had always been the same
trade as long as they or their fathers recollected, but that this was
the first time a real white man had come among them, and, said they,
"You see how the people come every day from all the villages round to
look at you." This was very flattering, and accounted for the great
concourse of visitors which I had at first imagined was accidental. A
few years before I had been one of the gazers at the Zoolus, and the
Aztecs in London. Now the tables were turned upon me, for I was to these
people a new and strange variety of man, and had the honour of affording
to them, in my own person, an attractive exhibition, gratis.
All the men and boys of Aru are expert archers, never stirring without
their bows and arrows. They shoot all sorts of birds, as well as pigs
and kangaroos occasionally, and thus have a tolerably good supply of
meat to eat with their vegetables. The result of this better living is
superior healthiness, well-made bodies, and generally clear skins. They
brought me numbers of small birds in exchange for beads or tobacco, but
mauled them terribly, notwithstanding my repeated instructions. When
they got a bird alive they would often tie a string to its leg, and keep
it a day or two, till its plumage was so draggled and dirtied as to be
almost worthless. One of the first things I got from there was a living
specimen of the curious and beautiful racquet-tailed kingfisher. Seeing
how much I admired it, they afterwards brought me several more, which
wore all caught before daybreak, sleeping in cavities of the rocky banks
of the stream. My hunters also shot a few specimens, and almost all
of them had the red bill more or less clogged with mud and earth. This
indicates the habits of the bird, which, though popularly a king-fisher,
never catches fish, but lives on insects and minute shells, which it
picks up in the forest, darting down upon them from its perch on some
low branch. The genus Tanysiptera, to which this bird belongs, is
remarkable for the enormously lengthened tail, which in all other
kingfishers is small and short. Linnaeus named the species known to
him "the goddess kingfisher" (Alcedo dea), from its extreme grace and
beauty, the plumage being brilliant blue and white, with the bill red,
like coral. Several species of these interesting birds are now known,
all confined within the very limited area which comprises the Moluccas,
New Guinea, and the extreme North of Australia. They resemble each other
so closely that several of them can only be distinguished by careful
comparison. One of the rarest, however, which inhabits New Guinea, is
very distinct from the rest, being bright red beneath instead of white.
That which I now obtained was a new one, and has been named Tanysiptera
hydrocharis, but in general form and coloration it is exactly similar to
the larger species found in Amboyna, and figured at page 468 of my first
volume.
New and interesting birds were continually brought in, either by my own
boys or by the natives, and at the end of a week Ali arrived triumphant
one afternoon with a fine specimen of the Great Bird of Paradise.
The ornamental plumes had not yet attained their full growth, but the
richness of their glossy orange colouring, and the exquisite delicacy
of the loosely waving feathers, were unsurpassable. At the same time a
great black cockatoo was brought in, as well as a fine fruit-pigeon and
several small birds, so that we were all kept hard at work skinning
till sunset. Just as we had cleared away and packed up for the night,
a strange beast was brought, which had been shot by the natives. It
resembled in size, and in its white woolly covering, a small fat
lamb, but had short legs, hand-like feet with large claws, and a long
prehensile tail. It was a Cuscus (C. maculatus), one of the curious
marsupial animals of the Papuan region, and I was very desirous to
obtain the skin. The owners, however, said they wanted to eat it; and
though I offered them a good price, and promised to give them all the
meat, there was grout hesitation. Suspecting the reason, I offered,
though it was night, to set to work immediately and get out the body for
them, to which they agreed. The creature was much hacked about, and the
two hind feet almost cut off; but it was the largest and finest specimen
of the kind I had seen; and after an hour's hard work I handed over the
body to the owners, who immediately cut it up and roasted it for supper.
As this was a very good place for birds, I determined to remain a month
longer, and took the opportunity of a native boat going to Dobbo, to
send Ali for a fresh supply of ammunition and provisions. They started
on the 10th of April, and the house was crowded with about a hundred
men, boys, women, and girls, bringing their loads of sugar-cane,
plantains, sirih-leaf, yams, &c.; one lad going from each house to sell
the produce and make purchases. The noise was indescribable. At least
fifty of the hundred were always talking at once, and that not in the
low measured tones of the apathetically polite Malay, but with loud
voices, shouts, and screaming laughter, in which the women and children
were even more conspicuous than the men. It was only while gazing at me
that their tongues were moderately quiet, because their eyes were fully
occupied. The black vegetable soil here overlying the coral rock is very
rich, and the sugar-cane was finer than any I had ever seen. The canes
brought to the boat were often ten and even twelve feet long, and thick
in proportion, with short joints throughout, swelling between the knots
with the abundance of the rich juice. At Dobbo they get a high price
for it, 1d. to 3d. a stick, and there is an insatiable demand among the
crews of the praus and the Baba fishermen. Here they eat it continually.
They half live on it, and sometimes feed their pigs with it. Near every
house are great heaps of the refuse cane; and large wicker-baskets
to contain this refuse as it is produced form a regular part of the
furniture of a house. Whatever time of the day you enter, you are sure
to find three or four people with a yard of cane in one hand, a knife
in the other, and a basket between their legs, hacking, paring, chewing,
and basket-filling, with a persevering assiduity which reminds one of a
hungry cow grazing, or of a caterpillar eating up a leaf.
After five days' absence the boats returned from Dobbo, bringing Ali and
all the things I had sent for quite safe. A large party had assembled to
be ready to carry home the goods brought, among which were a good many
cocoa-nut, which are a great luxury here. It seems strange that they
should never plant them; but the reason simply is, that they cannot
bring their hearts to bury a good nut for the prospective advantage of
a crop twelve years hence. There is also the chance of the fruits being
dug up and eaten unless watched night and day. Among the things I had
sent for was a box of arrack, and I was now of course besieged with
requests for a little drop. I gave them a flask (about two bottles),
which was very soon finished, and I was assured that there were many
present who had not had a taste. As I feared my box would very soon be
emptied if I supplied all their demands, I told them I had given them
one, but the second they must pay for, and that afterwards I must have
a Paradise bird for each flask. They immediately sent round to all the
neighbouring houses, and mustered up a rupee in Dutch copper money, got
their second flask, and drunk it as quickly as the first, and were then
very talkative, but less noisy and importunate than I had expected. Two
or three of them got round me and begged me for the twentieth time to
tell them the name of my country. Then, as they could not pronounce it
satisfactorily, they insisted that I was deceiving them, and that it
was a name of my own invention. One funny old man, who bore a ludicrous
resemblance, to a friend of mine at home, was almost indignant.
"Ung-lung! "said he, "who ever heard of such a name?--ang
lang--anger-lung--that can't be the name of your country; you are
playing with us." Then he tried to give a convincing illustration. "My
country is Wanumbai--anybody can say Wanumbai. I'm an orang-Wanumbai;
but, N-glung! who ever heard of such a name? Do tell us the real name of
your country, and then when you are gone we shall know how to talk about
you." To this luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose nothing
but assertion, and the whole party remained firmly convinced that I
was for some reason or other deceiving them. They then attacked me on
another point--what all the animals and birds and insects and shells
were preserved so carefully for. They had often asked me this before,
and I had tried to explain to them that they would be stuffed, and made
to look as if alive, and people in my country would go to look at them.
But this was not satisfying; in my country there must be many better
things to look at, and they could not believe I would take so much
trouble with their birds and beasts just for people to look at. They did
not want to look at them; and we, who made calico and glass and knives,
and all sorts of wonderful things, could not want things from Aru to
look at. They had evidently been thinking about it, and had at length
got what seemed a very satisfactory theory; for the same old man said to
me, in a low, mysterious voice, "What becomes of them when you go on to
the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in boxes," said I "What did you
think became of them?" "They all come to life again, don't they?" said
he; and though I tried to joke it off, and said if they did we should
have plenty to eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating,
with an air of deep conviction, "Yes, they all come to life again,
that's what they do--they all come to life again."
After a little while, and a good deal of talking among themselves, he
began again--"I know all about it--oh yes! Before you came we had rain
every day--very wet indeed; now, ever since you have been here, it is
fine hot weather. Oh, yes! I know all about it; you can't deceive me."
And so I was set down as a conjurer, and was unable to repel the charge.
But the conjurer was completely puzzled by the next question: "What,"
said the old man, "is the great ship, where the Bugis and Chinamen go to
sell their things? It is always in the great sea--its name is Jong; tell
us all about it." In vain I inquired what they knew about it; they knew
nothing but that it was called "Jong," and was always in the sea,
and was a very great ship, and concluded with, "Perhaps that is your
country?" Finding that I could not or would not tell them anything about
"Jong," there came more regrets that I would not tell them the real name
of my country; and then a long string of compliments, to the effect that
I was a much better sort of a person than the Bugis and Chinese, who
sometimes came to trade with them, for I gave them things for nothing,
and did not try to cheat them. How long would I stop? was the next
earnest inquiry. Would I stay two or three months? They would get me
plenty of birds and animals, and I might soon finish all the goods I had
brought, and then, said the old spokesman, "Don't go away, but send for
more things from Dobbo, and stay here a year or two." And then again the
old story, "Do tell us the name of your country. We know the Bugis men,
and the Macassar men, and the Java men, and the China men; only you,
we don't know from what country you come. Ung-lung! it can't be; I know
that is not the name of your country." Seeing no end to this long talk,
I said I was tired, and wanted to go to sleep; so after begging--one a
little bit of dry fish for his supper, and another a little salt to eat
with his sago--they went off very quietly, and I went outside and took
a stroll round the house by moonlight, thinking of the simple people
and the strange productions of Aru, and then turned in under my mosquito
curtain; to sleep with a sense of perfect security in the midst of these
good-natured savages.
We now had seven or eight days of hot and dry weather, which reduced the
little river to a succession of shallow pools connected by the smallest
possible thread of trickling water. If there were a dry season like that
of Macassar, the Aru Islands would be uninhabitable, as there is no part
of them much above a hundred feet high; and the whole being a mass of
porous coralline rock, allows the surface water rapidly to escape.
The only dry season they have is for a month or two about September
or October, and there is then an excessive scarcity of water, so that
sometimes hundreds of birds and other animals die of drought. The
natives then remove to houses near the sources of the small streams,
where, in the shady depths of the forest, a small quantity of water
still remains. Even then many of them have to go miles for their water,
which they keep in large bamboos and use very sparingly. They assure
me that they catch and kill game of all kinds, by watching at the water
holes or setting snares around them. That would be the time for me
to make my collections; but the want of water would be a terrible
annoyance, and the impossibility of getting away before another whole
year had passed made it out of the question.
Ever since leaving Dobbo I had suffered terribly from insects, who
seemed here bent upon revenging my long-continued persecution of their
race. At our first stopping-place sand-flies were very abundant at
night, penetrating to every part of the body, and producing a more
lasting irritation than mosquitoes. My feet and ankles especially
suffered, and were completely covered with little red swollen specks,
which tormented me horribly. On arriving here we were delighted to find
the house free from sand-flies or mosquitoes, but in the plantations
where my daily walks led me, the day-biting mosquitoes swarmed, and
seemed especially to delight in attaching my poor feet. After a month's
incessant punishment, those useful members rebelled against such
treatment and broke into open insurrection, throwing out numerous
inflamed ulcers, which were very painful, and stopped me from walking.
So I found myself confined to the house, and with no immediate prospect
of leaving it. Wounds or sores in the feet are especially difficult to
heal in hot climates, and I therefore dreaded them more than any other
illness. The confinement was very annoying, as the fine hot weather was
excellent for insects, of which I had every promise of obtaining a fine
collection; and it is only by daily and unremitting search that the
smaller kinds, and the rarer and more interesting specimens, can be
obtained. When I crawled down to the river-side to bathe, I often
saw the blue-winged Papilio ulysses, or some other equally rare and
beautiful insect; but there was nothing for it but patience, and
to return quietly to my bird-skinning, or whatever other work I had
indoors. The stings and bites and ceaseless irritation caused by these
pests of the tropical forests, would be borne uncomplainingly; but to be
kept prisoner by them in so rich and unexplored a country where rare and
beautiful creatures are to be met with in every forest ramble--a country
reached by such a long and tedious voyage, and which might not in the
present century be again visited for the same purpose--is a punishment
too severe for a naturalist to pass over in silence.
I had, however, some consolation in the birds my boys brought home
daily, more especially the Paradiseas, which they at length obtained in
full plumage. It was quite a relief to my mind to get these, for I could
hardly have torn myself away from Aru had I not obtained specimens.
But what I valued almost as much as the birds themselves was the
knowledge of their habits, which I was daily obtaining both from the
accounts of my hunters, and from the conversation of the natives. The
birds had now commenced what the people here call their "sacaleli," or
dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest, which are not fruit
trees as I at first imagined, but which have an immense tread of
spreading branches and large but scattered leaves, giving a clear space
for the birds to play and exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees
a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise
up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite
plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly
across from branch to branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree
is filled with waving plumes in every variety of attitude and motion.
(See Frontispiece.) The bird itself is nearly as large as a crow, and
is of a rich coffee brown colour. The head and neck is of a pure straw
yellow above and rich metallic green beneath. The long plumy tufts of
golden orange feathers spring from the sides beneath each wing, and when
the bird is in repose are partly concealed by them. At the time of its
excitement, however, the wings are raised vertically over the back, the
head is bent down and stretched out, and the long plumes are raised up
and expanded till they form two magnificent golden fans, striped with
deep red at the base, and fading off into the pale brown tint of
the finely divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then
overshadowed by them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald green
throat forming but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which
waves above. When seen in this attitude, the Bird of Paradise really
deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and
most wonderful of living things. I continued also to get specimens
of the lovely little king-bird occasionally, as well as numbers of
brilliant pigeons, sweet little parroquets, and many curious small
birds, most nearly resembling those of Australia and New Guinea.
Here, as among most savage people I have dwelt among, I was delighted
with the beauty of the human form-a beauty of which stay-at-home
civilized people can scarcely have any conception. What are the finest
Grecian statues to the living, moving, breathing men I saw daily around
me? The unrestrained grace of the naked savage as he goes about
his daily occupations, or lounges at his ease, must be seen to be
understood; and a youth bending his bow is the perfection of manly
beauty. The women, however, except in extreme youth, are by no means so
pleasant to look at as the men. Their strongly-marked features are very
unfeminine, and hard work, privations, and very early marriages soon
destroy whatever of beauty or grace they may for a short time possess.
Their toilet is very simple, but also, I am sorry to say, very coarse,
and disgusting. It consists solely of a mat of plaited strips of palm
leaves, worn tight round the body, and reaching from the hips to the
knees. It seems not to be changed till worn out, is seldom washed, and
is generally very dirty. This is the universal dress, except in a few
cases where Malay "sarongs" have come into use. Their frizzly hair is
tied in a bench at the back of the head. They delight in combing, or
rather forking it, using for that purpose a large wooden fork with four
diverging prongs, which answers the purpose of separating and arranging
the long tangled, frizzly mass of cranial vegetation much better than
any comb could do. The only ornaments of the women are earrings and
necklaces, which they arrange in various tasteful ways. The ends of a
necklace are often attached to the earrings, and then looped on to
the hair-knot behind. This has really an elegant appearance, the beads
hanging gracefully on each side of the head, and by establishing a
connexion with the earrings give an appearance of utility to those
barbarous ornaments. We recommend this style to the consideration of
those of the fair sex who still bore holes in their ears and hang rings
thereto. Another style of necklace among these Papuan belles is to wear
two, each hanging on one side of the neck and under the opposite arm, so
as to cross each other. This has a very pretty appearance, in part due
to the contrast of the white beads or kangaroo teeth of which they are
composed with the dark glossy skin. The earrings themselves are formed
of a bar of copper or silver, twisted so that the ends cross. The men,
as usual among savages, adorn themselves more than the women. They wear
necklaces, earrings, and finger rings, and delight in a band of plaited
grass tight round the arm just below the shoulder, to which they attach
a bunch of hair or bright coloured feathers by way of ornament. The
teeth of small animals, either alone, or alternately with black or white
beads, form their necklaces, and sometimes bracelets also. For
these latter, however, they prefer brass wire, or the black, horny,
wing-spines of the cassowary, which they consider a charm. Anklets of
brass or shell, and tight plaited garters below the knee, complete their
ordinary decorations.
Some natives of Kobror from further south, and who are reckoned the
worst and least civilized of the Aru tribes, came one day to visit us.
They have a rather more than usually savage appearance, owing to the
greater amount of ornaments they use--the most conspicuous being a
large horseshoe-shaped comb which they wear over the forehead, the ends
resting on the temples. The back of the comb is fastened into a piece of
wood, which is plated with tin in front, and above is attached a plume
of feathers from a cock's tail. In other respects they scarcely differed
from the people I was living with. They brought me a couple of birds,
some shells and insects; showing that the report of the white man and
his doing had reached their country. There was probably hardly a man in
Aru who had not by this time heard of me.
Besides the domestic utensils already mentioned, the moveable property
of a native is very scanty. He has a good supply of spears and bows
and arrows for hunting, a parang, or chopping-knife, and an axe-for the
stone age has passed away here, owing to the commercial enterprise of
the Bugis and other Malay races. Attached to a belt, or hung across
his shoulder, he carries a little skin pouch and an ornamented
bamboo, containing betel-nut, tobacco, and lime, and a small German
wooden-handled knife is generally stuck between his waist-cloth of bark
and his bare shin. Each man also possesses a "cadjan," or sleeping-mat,
made of the broad leaves of a pandanus neatly sewn together in three
layers. This mat is abort four feet square, and when folded has one end
sewn up, so that it forms a kind of sack open at one side. In the closed
corner the head or feet can be placed, or by carrying it on the head
in a shower it forms both coat and umbrella. It doubles up ix a small
compass for convenient carriage, and then forms a light and elastic
cushion, so that on a journey it becomes clothing, house, bedding, and
furniture, all in one.
The only ornaments in an Aru horse are trophies of the chase--jaws of
wild pigs, the heads and backbones of cassowaries, and plumes made from
the feathers of the Bird of Paradise, cassowary, and domestic fowl.
The spears, shields, knife-handles, and other utensils are more or less
carved in fanciful designs, and the mats and leaf boxes are painted or
plaited in neat patterns of red, black, and yellow colours. I must not
forget these boxes, which are most ingeniously made of the pith of
a balm leaf pegged together, lined inside with pandanus leaves, and
outside with the same, or with plaited grass. All the joints and angles
are coffered with strips of split rattan sewn neatly on. The lid is
covered with the brown leathery spathe of the Areca palm, which is
impervious to water, and the whole box is neat, strong, and well
finished. They are made from a few inches to two or three feet long, and
being much esteemed by the Malay as clothes-boxes, are a regular article
of export from Aru. The natives use the smaller ones for tobacco or
betel-nut, but seldom have clothes enough to require the larger ones,
which are only made for sale.
Among the domestic animals which may generally be seen in native houses,
are gaudy parrots, green, red, and blue, a few domestic fowls, which
have baskets hung for them to lay in under the eaves, and who sleep on
the ridge, and several half-starved wolfish-baking dogs. Instead of rats
and mice there are curious little marsupial animals about the same size,
which run about at night and nibble anything eatable that may be left
uncovered. Four or five different kinds of ants attack everything not
isolated by water, and one kind even swims across that; great spiders
lurk in baskets and boxes, or hide in the folds of my mosquito curtain;
centipedes and millepedes are found everywhere. I have caught them under
my pillow and on my bead; while in every box, and under every hoard
which has lain for some days undisturbed, little scorpions are sure to
be found snugly ensconced, with their formidable tails quickly turned
up ready for attack or defence. Such companions seem very alarming
and dangerous, but all combined are not so bad as the irritation of
mosquitoes, or of the insect pests often found at home. These latter are
a constant and unceasing source of torment and disgust, whereas you
may live a long time among scorpions, spiders, and centipedes, ugly and
venomous though they are, and get no harm from them. After living twelve
years in the tropics, I have never yet been bitten or stung by either.
The lean and hungry dogs before mentioned were my greatest enemies,
and kept me constantly on the watch. If my boys left the bird they
were skinning for an instant, it was sure to be carried off. Everything
eatable had to be hung up to the roof, to be out of their reach. Ali
had just finished skinning a fine King Bird of Paradise one day, when
he dropped the skin. Before he could stoop to pick it up, one of this
famished race had seized upon it, and he only succeeded in rescuing
it from its fangs after it was torn to tatters. Two skins of the
large Paradisea, which were quite dry and ready to pack away, were
incautiously left on my table for the night, wrapped up in paper. The
next morning they were gone, and only a few scattered feathers indicated
their fate. My hanging shelf was out of their reach; but having stupidly
left a box which served as a step, a full-plumaged Paradise bird was
next morning missing; and a dog below the house was to be seen still
mumbling over the fragments, with the fine golden plumes all trampled
in the mud. Every night, as soon as I was in bed, I could hear them
searching about for what they could devour, under my table, and all
about my boxes and baskets, keeping me in a state of suspense till
morning, lest something of value might incautiously have been left
within their read. They would drink the oil of my floating lamp and eat
the wick, and upset or break my crockery if my lazy boys had neglected
to wash away even the smell of anything eatable. Bad, however, as they
are here, they were worse in a Dyak's house in Borneo where I was once
staying, for there they gnawed off the tops of my waterproof boots,
ate a large piece out of an old leather game-bag, besides devouring a
portion of my mosquito curtain!
April 28th.--Last evening we had a grand consultation, which had
evidently been arranged and discussed beforehand. A number of the
natives gathered round me, and said they wanted to talk. Two of the best
Malay scholars helped each other, the rest putting in hints and ideas
in their own language. They told me a long rambling story; but, partly
owing to their imperfect knowledge of Malay, partly through my ignorance
of local terms, and partly through the incoherence of their narrative, I
could not make it out very clearly. It was, however, a tradition, and
I was glad to find they had anything of the kind. A long time ago, they
said, some strangers came to Aru, and came here to Wanumbai, and the
chief of the Wanumbai people did not like them, and wanted them to go
away, but they would not go, and so it came to fighting, and many Aru
men were killed, and some, along with the chief, were taken prisoners,
and carried away by the strangers. Some of the speakers, however, said
that he was not carried away, but went away in his own boat to escape
from the foreigners, and went to the sea and never came back again. But
they all believe that the chief and the people that went with him still
live in some foreign country; and if they could but find out where, they
would send for them to come back again. Now having some vague idea that
white men must know every country beyond the sea, they wanted to know
if I had met their people in my country or in the sea. They thought they
must be there, for they could not imagine where else they could be. They
had sought for them everywhere, they said--on the land and in the sea,
in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and in the sky, and could
not find them; therefore, they must be in my country, and they begged
me to tell them, for I must surely know, as I came from across the
great sea. I tried to explain to them that their friends could not have
reached my country in small boats; and that there were plenty of islands
like Aru all about the sea, which they would be sure to find. Besides,
as it was so long ago, the chief and all the people must be dead. But
they quite laughed at this idea, and said they were sure they were
alive, for they had proof of it. And then they told me that a good many
years ago, when the speakers were boys, some Wokan men who were out
fishing met these lost people in the sea, and spoke to them; and the
chief gave the Wokan men a hundred fathoms of cloth to bring to the men
of Wanumbai, to show that they were alive and would soon come back to
them, but the Wokan men were thieves, and kept the cloth, and they only
heard of it afterwards; and when they spoke about it, the Wokan men
denied it, and pretended they had not received the cloth;--so they were
quite sure their friends were at that time alive and somewhere in the
sea. And again, not many years ago, a report came to them that some
Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they
went to Dobbo to see about it, and the owner of the house, who was now
speaking to me, was one who went; but the Bugis man would not let them
see the children, and threatened to kill them if they came into his
house. He kept the children shut up in a large box, and when he went
away he took them with him. And at the end of each of these stories,
they begged me in an imploring tone to tell them if I knew where their
chief and their people now were.
By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangers who had
taken away their people. They said they were wonderfully strong, and
each one could kill a great many Aru men; and when they were wounded,
however badly, they spit upon the place, and it immediately became well.
And they made a great net of rattans, and entangled their prisoners in
it, and sunk them in the water; and the next day, when they pulled
the net up on shore, they made the drowned men come to life again, and
carried them away.
Much more of the same kind was told me, but in so confused and rambling
a manner that I could make nothing out of it, till I inquired how long
ago it was that all this happened, when they told me that after their
people were taken away the Bugis came in their praus to trade in Aru,
and to buy tripang and birds' nests. It is not impossible that something
similar to what they related to me really happened when the early
Portuguese discoverers first came to Aru, and has formed the foundation
for a continually increasing accumulation of legend and fable. I have
no doubt that to the next generation, or even before, I myself shall be
transformed into a magician or a demigod, a worker of miracles, and
a being of supernatural knowledge. They already believe that all the
animals I preserve will come to life again; and to their children it
will be related that they actually did so. An unusual spell of fine
weather setting in just at my arrival has made them believe I can
control the seasons; and the simple circumstance of my always walking
alone in the forest is a wonder and a mystery to them, as well as my
asking them about birds and animals I have not yet seen, and showing
an acquaintance with their form, colours, and habits. These facts are
brought against me when I disclaim knowledge of what they wish me to
tell them. "You must know," say they; "you know everything: you make the
fine weather for your men to shoot, and you know all about our birds and
our animals as well as we do; and you go alone into the forest and
are not afraid." Therefore every confession of ignorance on my part is
thought to be a blind, a mere excuse to avoid telling them too much. My
very writing materials and books are to them weird things; and were I to
choose to mystify them by a few simple experiments with lens and magnet,
miracles without end would in a few years cluster about me; and future
travellers, penetrating to Wanumbai, world h hardly believe that a poor
English naturalist, who had resided a few months among them, could have
been the original of the supernatural being to whom so many marvels were
attributed.
Far some days I had noticed a good deal of excitement, and many
strangers came and went armed with spears and cutlasses, bows and
shields. I now found there was war near us--two neighbouring villages
having a quarrel about some matter of local politics that I could not
understand. They told me it was quite a common thing, and that they are
rarely without fighting somewhere near. Individual quarrels are taken up
by villages and tribes, and the nonpayment of the stipulated price for a
wife is one of the most frequent causes of bitterness and bloodshed. One
of the war shields was brought me to look at. It was made of rattans
and covered with cotton twist, so as to be both light, strong, and very
tough. I should think it would resist any ordinary bullet. Abort the
middle there was au arm-hole with a shutter or flap over it. This
enables the arm to be put through and the bow drawn, while the body
and face, up to the eyes, remain protected, which cannot be done if
the shield is carried on the arm by loops attached at the back in the
ordinary way. A few of the young men from our house went to help their
friends, but I could not bear that any of them were hurt, or that there
was much hard fighting.
May 8th.-I had now been six weeks at Wanumbai, but for more than half
the time was laid up in the house with ulcerated feet. My stores being
nearly exhausted, and my bird and insect boxes full, and having no
immediate prospect of getting the use of my legs again, I determined
on returning to Dobbo. Birds had lately become rather scarce, and the
Paradise birds had not yet become as plentiful as the natives assured me
they would be in another month. The Wanumbai people seemed very sorry
at my departure; and well they might be, for the shells and insects they
picked up on the way to and from their plantations, and the birds the
little boys shot with their bows and arrows, kept them all well supplied
with tobacco and gambir, besides enabling them to accumulate a stock
of beads and coppers for future expenses. The owner of the house was
supplied gratis with a little rice, fish, or salt, whenever he asked for
it, which I must say was not very often. On parting, I distributed among
them my remnant stock of salt and tobacco, and gave my host a flask
of arrack, and believe that on the whole my stay with these simple
and good-natured people was productive of pleasure and profit to
both parties. I fully intended to come back; and had I known that
circumstances would have prevented my doing so, shoed have felt some
sorrow in leaving a place where I had first seen so many rare and
beautiful living things, and bad so fully enjoyed the pleasure which
fills the heart of the naturalist when he is so fortunate as to discover
a district hitherto unexplored, and where every day brings forth new and
unexpected treasures. We loaded our boat in the afternoon, and, starting
before daybreak, by the help of a fair wind reached Dobbo late the same
evening.