soon as I was in bed, I could hear them searching about
for wbat they could devour, under my table, and all .about
my boxes and baskets, keeping me in a state of suspense
till morning, lest something of value might incautiously
have been left within their reach. They would drink the
oil of my floating lamp and eat the wick, and upset or
break my crockery if my lazy boys had neglected to wash
away even the smell of anything eatable. Bad, however,
as they are here, they were worse in a Dyak’s house in
Borneo where I was once staying, for there they gnawed
off the tops of my waterproof boots, ate a large piece out of
an old leather game-bag, besides devouring a portion of my
mosquito curtain!
April 28iA.—Last evening we had a grand consultation,
which had evidently been arranged and discussed beforehand.
A number of the natives gathered round me, and
said they wanted to talk. Two of the best Malay scholars
helped each other, the rest putting in hints and ideas in
their own language. They told me a long rambling story;
but, partly owing to their imperfect knowledge of Malay,
partly through my ignorance of local terms, and partly
through the incoherence of their narrative, I could not
make it out very clearly. It Was, however, a tradition,
and I was glad to find they had anything of the kind. A
long time ago, they said, some strangers came to Aru, and
came here to Wanumbai, and the chief of the Wanumbai
people did not like them, and wanted them to go away,
but they would not go, and so it came to fighting, and
many Aru men were killed, and some, along with the chief,
were taken prisoners, and carried away by the strangers.
Some of the speakers, however, said that he was not carried
away, but went away in his own boat to escape from the.
foreigners, and went to the sea and never came back again .,
But they all believe that the chief and the people that
went with him still live in some foreign country; and if
they could but find out where, they would send for them
to come back again. Now having some vague idea that
White men must know every country beyond the sea, they
wanted to know if I had met their people in my country
or in the sea. They thought they must be there, for they
could not imagine where else they could be. They had
sought for them everywhere, they said—on the land and in
the sea, in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and
in the sky, and could not find them; therefore, they must
be in my country, and they begged me to tell them, for I
must surely know, as I came from across the great sea. I
tried to explain to them that their friends could not have
reached my country in small boats; and that there were
plenty of islands like Aru all about the sea, which they
would be sure to find. Besides, as it was so long ago, the
chief and all the people must be dead. But they quite
laughed at this idea, and said they were sure they were alive,