requires a sudden run and active fingers to secure a
specimen. This species emits the usual fetid odour of the
ground beetles. My collections during our four days’ stay
at Ké were as follow :—Birds, 13 species ; insects, 194
species ; ahd 3 kinds of land-shells.
There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands
—the indigenes, who have the Papuan characters strongly
marked, and who are pagans; and a mixed race, who are
nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing, while
the former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These
Mahometans are said to have been driven out of Banda by
the early European settlers. They were probably a brown
race, more allied to the Malays, and their mixed descendants
here exhibit great variations of colour, hair, and
features, graduating between the Malay and Papuan types.
It is interesting to observe the influence of the early
Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of
their language, which still remain in use even among these
remote and savage islanders. “ Lenço ” for handkerchief,
and " faca ” for knife, are here used to the exclusion of the
proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were
truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected
more rapid changes in the countries they conquered than
any other nations of modern times, resembling the Eomans
in their power of impressing their own language, religion,
and manners on rude and barbarous tribes.
The striking contrast of character between these people
and the Malays is exemplified in many little traits. One
day when I was rambling in the forest, an old man stopped
to look at me catching an insect. He stood very quiet
till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box,
when he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost
double, and enjoyed a hearty roar of laughter. Every
one will recognise this as a true negro trait. A Malay
would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment
what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh,
never heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a
stranger, to whom, however, his disdainful glances or
whispered remarks are less agreeable than the most,
boisterous open expression of merriment. The women :
here were not so much frightened at strangers, or made
to keep themselves so much secluded as among the
Malay races; the children were more merry and had
the “ nigger grin,” while the noisy confusion of tongues
among the men, and their excitement on very ordinary
occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity
and reserve of the Malay.
The language of the Kfi people consists of words of one,
two, or three syllables in about equal proportions, and has
many aspirated and a few guttural sounds. The different
villages have slight differences of dialect, but they are
mutually intelligible, and, except in words that have
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