lost in admiration, at the velvet black and brilliant green
of its wings, seven inches across, its golden body, and
crimson breast. It is true I had seen similar insects in
cabinets at home, but it is quite another thing to capture
such oneself—to feel it struggling between one’s fingers,
and to gaze upon its fresh and living beauty, a bright gem
shining out amid the silent gloom of a dark and tangled
forest. The village of Dobbo held that evening at least
one contented man.
Jan. 26th.—Having now been here a fortnight, I
began to understand a little of the place and its peculiarities.
Praus continually arrived, and the merchant
population increased almost daily. Every two or three
days a fresh house was opened, and the necessary repairs
made. In every direction men were bringing in poles,
bamboos, rattans, and the leaves of the nipa palm to
construct or repair the walls, thatch, doors, and shutters of
their houses, which they do with great celerity. Some of
the arrivals were Macassar men or Bugis, but more from
the small island of Goram, at the east end. of Geram,
whose inhabitants are the petty traders of the far East.
Then the natives of Aru come in from the other side of
the islands (called here “ blakang tana,” or “ back of the
country ”) with the produce they have collected during
the preceding six months, and which they now sell to the
traders, to some of whom they are most likely in debt.
Almost all, or I may safely say all, the new arrivals pay
me a visit, to see with their own eyes the unheard-of phenomenon
of a person come to stay at Dobbo who does not
trade ! They have their own ideas of the uses that may
possibly be made of stuffed birds, beetles, and shells which
are not the right shells—that, is, “ mother-of-pearl. They
every day bring me dead and broken shells, such as I can
pick up by hundreds on the beach, and seem quite puzzled
and distressed when I decline them. If, however, there
are any snail shells among a lot, I take them, and ask for
more—a principle of selection so utterly unintelligible to
them, that they give it up in despair, or solve the problem
by imptiting hidden medical virtue to those which they
see me preserve so carefully.
These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of
which Malay is the chief ingredient, with the exception of
a few Chinese. The natives of Aru, on the other hand,
are Papuans; with black or sooty brown skins, woolly
or frizzly hair, thick-ridged prominent noses, and rather
slender limbs. Most of them wear nothing but a waist-
cloth, and a few of them may be seen all day long wandering
about the half-deserted streets of Dobbo offering
their little bit of merchandise for sale.
Living in a trader’s house everything is brought to me as
well as to the rest,—bundles of smoked tripang, or “ bêche
de mer,” looking like sausages which have been rolled in