and a small frying-pan; and tlie little teapot tliat accompanied
me on my Amboina excursions was not
left behind.
October 16th.—This morning we came out to our
forest borne. Our bouse is about eigbt feet wide,
twelve feet long, and percbed upon large posts four
feet from tbe ground. It is divided by a transverse
partition into a front room or parlor, and a back
room or kitcben. In one corner of tbe latter is a
square framework filled witb asbes, in wbicb are inserted
three long stones, wbose tops sligbtly incline
toward eacb otber. These are to support tbe kettles,
for no Malay bas ever conceived of a machine
for cooking so complicated as a crane. As to a chimney,
there is none whatever, but tbe smoke is allowed
to escape under tbe eaves or through a bole in tbe
side of tbe bouse that also serves for a window. Tbe
frame of tbe bouse is made from small trees. For a
flooring, broad sheets of bark are used. Tbe walls
are made of gaba-gaba, tbe dry midribs of large palm-
leaves, and tbe roof is of atarp. Tbe front door is in
one of tbe gable ends, and is reached by a rickety
ladder of two rounds. This part is transformed into
a rude piazza by a sbed-roof, beneath wbicb we have
made a seat and a kind of table for tbe hunter to use
in skinning birds.
My daily routine here is tbe same as before—
bunting every morning and evening, witb a native
to carry my ammunition and to pick up tbe birds—
a very difficult task whenever we are in tbe thick
jungle or among tbe tall grass. Hear our bouse is
the stony bed of a torrent, wbicb is now perfectly
dry. It is tbe only cleared way there is through tbe
dense forest around us, and I avail myself of it to
travel up toward tbe mountains and down toward
tbe sea. Indeed, I feel proud of our grand highway.
True, it is not paved witb blocks all carefully cut
down to one precise model, and so exactly uniform
as to be absolutely painful to tbe eye, but Nature
herself bas paved it in her own inimitable way—notice
bow all tbe stones have been rounded by tbe
boiling torrent wbicb pours down here from tbe
mountains during tbe rainy season. Some are ^ almost
perfect ellipsoides or spheres, but most are disk-
shaped, for they are made from thin fragments of
slate that bad sharp corners when they broke away
from their parent mountain. To prevent a dull uniformity
of color, she bas scattered here and there
rounded boulders of opaque milk-white quartz, fragments,
undoubtedly, from beds of that rock wbicb, at
this place at least, are interstratified witb tbe slate.
Here and there are deeper places, where tbe troubled
stream was accustomed to rest before it went on
again in a foaming torrent to empty its sparkling
waters into tbe wide sea, tbe original source of all
streams. By this way I visit my nearest neighbors
and procure chickens, wbicb our cook roasts on sticks
over tbe fire, after having carefully rubbed them with
salt and a liberal allowance of red pepper, tbe two
universal condiments among tbe Malays. For ages
all the salt these people have bad bas been brought
from Java. Tbe red pepper thrives well everywhere
without tbe slightest care, and it is almost always
found growing near every but. A large bush