are worth more than all the crockery and other glassware
on the table beside. While I was most zealously
explaining in reply the superiority of our custom,
there arose a suppressed giggle behind me; the
secret was out—the rajah’s wives had been allowed
to leave their close prison and look at me, while I
was so placed that I could not, without the greatest
rudeness, turn round so as to steal a glance at them.
But as this noise was evidently not a part of the
proposed programme, I repressed my curiosity, and
continued my description. One topic especially they
never seemed weary of hearing about, and that was
my experience as a soldier. There was something
strangely fascinating to their rude imaginations in
the scenes of blood through which I have had to
pass. At first I had some difficulty in translating
my stories into good Malay, but one of my servants
fortunately spoke a little Dutch, and supplied me
with a word or sentence, as the case demanded.
From Assilulu I set off, during a heavy rainstorm,
over a neighboring mountain for the southwest
shore, and after a long walk over the rocks,
sand, and shingle, we reached Lariki, where there
was once a fort with a garrison, but now the ruins
of the fort, and a few old, rusty guns are all that
remain; and the only official stationed there is an
opziener or “ overseer.” In two days, at that place, I
so increased my collection, that I had to hire eight
coolies to transport it, each carrying two baskets
—one on either end of a pole about four feet long.
The baskets are made of an open framework of
bamboo, covered inside with palm-leaves, and are
therefore very light and durable. The most common
shell there is the little cyprcea caput-serpentis, or
“ serpent’s - head cowry,” which has a close resemblance,
both in form and color, to the head of a
snake.
From Lariki the opziener accompanied me to the
neighboring Twmpong of Wakasihu. Our narrow
footpath wound along the side of a rugged, projecting
crag, and the view from the outer point was
very imposing. The stormy monsoon was at its
height. The heavy swell rolling in from the open
ocean broke and flung its white spray and clotted
foam far and wide over the black rocks left bare by
the ebbing tide. Thick clouds, heavily freighted
with rain, were driven by the strong wind against
the rugged coast and adjoining mountains. The
cocoa-nut palms that grew just above high-water
level, and leaned over toward the sea, twisted and
shook their plumy crests in a continual strife with
the angry storm, and above them the branches of
great evergreens moaned and piped as they lashed to
and fro in the fitful gusts of the tempests.
At Wakasihu the old white-bearded rajah, hear
ing of our approach, came out to welcome us. The
opziener explained to him the object of my coming,'
and immediately he ordered a large tifa , that hung
under an adjoining shed, to be beaten, as a warning
to his people that their rajah required them all to
assemble at once before his house. The news quickly
spread that a foreigner had come to purchase shells,
and the old men, young men, women, and children
all came with the treasures that had been aceumulat-
11