170 LOMBOCK. 



manufacture and commerce ; but it will be seen that, under 

 the circumstances I have just described, it would have been 

 impossible to add these to the collections which were my own 

 more especial favorites. When travelling by boat the diffi- 

 culties are as great or greater, and they are not diminished 

 when the journey is by land. It was absolutely necessary, 

 therefore, to limit my collections to certain groups to which I 

 could devote constant personal attention, and thus secure from 

 destruction or decay what had been often obtained by much 

 labor and pains. 



While Manuel sat skinning his birds of an afternoon, gen- 

 erally surrounded by a little crowd of Malays and Sassaks 

 (as the indigenes of Lombock are termed), he often held forth 

 to them with the air of a teacher, and was listened to with 

 profound attention. He was very fond of discoursing on the 

 " special providences " of which he believed he was daily the 

 subject. "Allah has been merciful to-day," he would say — 

 for, although a Christian, he adopted the Mohammedan mode 

 of speech — " and has given us some very fine birds ; we can do 

 nothing without him." Then one of the Malays would reply, 

 " To be sure, birds are like mankind ; they have their appoint- 

 ed time to die ; when that time comes nothing can save them, 

 and if it has not come you can not kill them." A murmur 

 of assent follows this sentiment, and cries of " Butul ! butul !" 

 (Right, right). Then Manuel would tell a long story of one 

 of his unsuccessful hunts — how he saw some fine bird and 

 followed it a long way, and then missed it, and again found it, 

 and shot two or three times at it, but could never hit it. "Ah !" 

 says an old Malay, " its time was not come, and so it was im- 

 possible for you to kill it." A doctrine this which is very 

 consoling to the bad marksman, and which quite accounts for 

 the facts, but which is yet somehoAV not altogether satisfac- 

 tory. 



It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have 

 the power to turn themselves into crocodiles, which they do 

 for the sake of devouring their enemies, and many strange 

 tales are told of such transformations. I was therefore rath- 

 er surprised one evening to hear the following curious fact 

 stated ; and as it was not contradicted by any of the persons 

 present,! am inclined to accept it provisionally, as a contribu- 



