IN THE MOLUCCAS. 293 



a year to the village. The people are Mahomcdaiifl, atul their 

 language was quite unintelligible to us, being the haJiasa ncgorai 

 or the old language of the country, which the Sinini consider 

 it beneath them to speak, just as tbey imagine it derogatory to 

 their more elevated position as Sirani to wear the head-cloth 

 and Malay sarong. The largest edifice in the vilhige is Ihc 

 Baluai, the council room, where the rajah, the priests, and the 

 chiefs of the village hold their deliberations. The rajah of 

 Paso told me that his Baluai had fallen to ruins, but as the old 

 bahasa, which they had quite discarded, might alone be spoken 

 in it, they could not rebuild it. The Baluai corresponds very 

 nearly with the Balai of Sumatra, and both words have pro- 

 bably a Polynesian origin. The manners of the villagers here 

 are simpler and far less haughty than those of the Sirani ; but 

 they seem poorer and less advanced in civilised ways. 

 . After some delay, but without any unpleasantness, we ob- 

 tained a boat and rowers and started for Wai. ITiom Tengah- 

 tengah we sailed through what might have been a bay in 



Fairyland : the coral gardens beneath our keel, so beautiful 

 that w^e found it difficult to proceed far without bidding our 

 rowers to rest on their oars to let us admire each more 



I* 



wonderful spot ; around us the white shore line, in front of 

 a dark green palm-fringe ; behind us the island of Ilaruku 

 embowered in foliage, and the distant peaks of Ceram. 

 When at length we ran our prau on the sh(jre in the mid- 

 afternoon in front of the village of Wai, the unreal nature of 

 the scene seemed complete, so buried was the place in slcpp, 

 not a moving creature was to be seen anywhere on the shore 

 or in the village, not a sound of life broke the stillness of its 

 tree-shaded " straats," not the bark of a dog, or the note of a 

 bird from among the trees, whose branches huug listlffs in 

 the broiling sun. So heavy lay the death-like silence on all 

 around that we felt as if we ought not to speak above a 

 whisper, or to tread except on tip-too, as, led by one of our 

 boatmen, we slowly made our way to the house of the rajah, 

 who, after a time, appeared in his sleeping attire, in a half- 

 bewildered and confused state at finding a couple of white 

 strangers in his verandah. At last, when he had slowly 

 grasped the reason of our unexpected advent, we came to terms 

 with him for an unoccupied house of his a few doors from 



