IN BUMU. 401 



CHAPTER IL 



AT LAKE WAKOLO 



The Lake — The people therfe — Garments — Cultivation — Anns and accoutre- 

 ments — Marriage — Death rites — Superstitions about the lake — Explana- 

 tion of its position and of the aLsence of fish in it — New tirds — Great 

 disappointment — Keturn to Kajeli — Thence to Amboina — CompoUcd to 

 leave the Moluccas — A kind farewell —Leave for Timor. 



Mr. Eergma:i^n, the Post-holder, had hoped, he said, to fiud 

 some 2000 people living round the lake, and to stay for at 

 least a week or ten days ; but we found only some seven or 

 eight houses as poor as the few we had already passed, and ho 

 decided on the afternoon of our arrival to start back in a couple 

 of days to the coast. This was a grievous disappointment to 

 me after so difficult and arduous a journey. As he would not 

 be induced to stay, and without the presence of the Eajahs who 

 would accompany him I could obtain nothing, either in the 

 way of food or of porterage, I could only make the most, 

 therefore, of the few hours at my disposal. I devoted the 

 remainder of the first day to seeing something of the people, 

 and in sketchinir tlieir feature 



_, ,., a. 



The lake mountaineers, living so far removed from all coast 

 interference, and rarely, if ever, visiting the shore, should be 

 better representatives of the Burucso than the low country 

 tribes who are now quite tinctured in manners and customs, as 

 . well as in race, by an infinite variety of influences— and where 

 indeed is the race now to be found not so contaminated by 

 extraneous forces ? The ideas as well as the manufactures of 

 western lands are bes-inninir to be felt and seen in the huts 



O "*"D 



of the rudest tribes, and among the people the most distant 

 from civilisation. It is therefore more incumbent than ever 

 on all travellers to record with the utmost fidelity every 

 ininutifG of ithe customs and ideas of the rude peoples they 

 encounter, for with the disappearance of their untainted 



