My readers may now partially understand why a travel*
ling naturalist of limited means, like myself, does so much
less than is expected or than he would himself wish to
■ do. It would he interesting to preserve skeletons of many
birds and animals, reptiles and fishes in spirits, skins of
the larger animals, remarkable fruits and woods and the
most curious articles of manufacture and commerce ;
but it will be seen that under the circumstances I have
just described it would have been impossible to add
these to the collections which were my own more especial
favourites. When travelling by boat the difficulties are as
great or greater, and they are not diminished when the
journey is by land. It was absolutely necessary therefore
to limit my collections to certain groups to which I could
devote constant personal attention, and thus secure from
destruction or decay what had been often obtained by
much labour and pains.
While Manuel sat skinning his birds of an afternoon,
generally surrounded by a little crowd of Malays and
Sassaks (as the indigenes of Lombock are termed), he often
held forth to them with the air of a teacher, and was
listened to with profound attention. He was very fond of
discoursing on the “ special providences ” of which he believed
he was daily thé subject. “ Allah has been merciful
to-day,” he would say—for although a Christian he adopted
the Mahometan mode of speech—“ and has given us some
very fine birds; we can do nothing without him.” Then
one of the Malays would reply, “ To be sure, birds are like
mankind; they have their appointed time to die; when
that time comes nothing can save them, and if it has not
come you cannot kill them.” A murmur of assent follows
this sentiment, and cries of “ Butul! Butul! ” * (Bight,
right.) Then Manuel would tell a long story of one of his
unsuccessful hunts how he saw some fine bird and followed
it a long way, and then missed it, and again found
it, and shot two or three times at it, but could never hit it.
“ Ah ! ” says an old Malay, “ its time was not come, and
so it was impossible for you to kill it.” A doctrine this
which is very consoling to the bad marksman, and which
quite accounts for the facts, but which is yet somehow not
altogether satisfactory.
It is universally believed in Lombock that some men
have the power to turn themselves into crocodiles, which
they do for the sake of devouring their enemies, and many
strange tales are told of such transformations. I was
therefore rather surprised one evening to hear the following
curious fact stated, and as it was not contradicted by any
, of the persons present I am inclined to accept it provisionally,
as a contribution to the Natural History of the
island. A Bornean Malay who had been for many years
resident here said to Manuel, “ One thing is strange in
this country—the scarcity of ghosts.” “ How so ? ” asked