Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from Aru to look at. They had evidently been thinking about it, and had at length got what
seemed a very satisfactory theory; for the same old man said to me, in a low mysterious
voice, 'What becomes of them when you go on to the sea?' 'Why, they are all packed up in
boxes,' said I. 'What did you think became of them?' 'They all come to life again, don't
they?' said he; and though I tried to joke it off, and said if they did we should have plenty to
eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating, with an air of deep conviction, 'Yes,
they all come to life again, that's what they do—they all come to life again.'
After a little while, and a good deal of talking among themselves, he began again—'I
know all about it—oh, yes! Before you came we had rain every day—very wet indeed; now,
ever since you have been here, it is fine hot weather. Oh, yes! I know all about it; you can't
deceive me.' And so I was set down as a conjurer, and was unable to repel the charge. But
the conjurer was completely puzzled by the next question: 'What,' said the old man, 'is the
great ship, where the Bugis and Chinamen go to sell their things? It is always in the great
sea—its name is Jong; tell us all about it.' In vain I inquired what they knew about it; they
knew nothing but that it was called 'Jong,' and was always in the sea, and was a very great
ship, and concluded with, 'Perhaps that is your country?' Finding that I could not or would
not tell them anything about 'Jong,' there came more regrets that I would not tell them the
real name of my country; and then a long string of compliments, to the effect that I was a
much better sort of a person than the Bugis and Chinese, who sometimes came to trade with
them, for I gave them things for nothing, and did not try to cheat them. How long would I
stop? was the next earnest inquiry. Would I stay two or three months? They would get me
plenty of birds and animals, and I might soon finish all the goods I had brought, and then,
said the old spokesman, 'Don't go away, but send for more things from Dobbo, and stay
here a year or two.' And then again the old story, 'Do tell us the name of your country. We
know the Bugis men, and the Macassar men, and the Java men, and the China men; only
you, we don't know from what country you come. Ung-lung! it can't be; I know that is not
the name of your country.' Seeing no end to this long talk, I said I was tired, and wanted to
go to sleep; so after begging—one a little bit of dry fish for his supper; and another a little
salt to eat with his sago—they went off very quietly, and I went outside and took a stroll
round the house by moonlight, thinking of the simple people and the strange productions of
Aru, and then turned in under my mosquito curtain, to sleep with a sense of perfect security
in the midst of these good-natured savages.
We now had seven or eight days of hot and dry weather, which reduced the little river to a
succession of shallow pools connected by the smallest possible thread of trickling water. If
there were a dry season like that of Macassar, the Aru Islands would be uninhabitable, as
