Mr. Van der Beck. 357 



most entirely unexplored island of Ceram by staying in this 

 place. 



I rather regretted leaving, because my host was one of the 

 most remarkable men and most entertaining companions I had 

 ever met with. He was a Fleming by birth, and, like so many 

 of his countrymen, had a wonderful talent for languages. 

 When quite a youth, he had accompanied a Government offi- 

 cial who was sent to report on the trade and commerce of the 

 Mediterranean, and had acquii-ed the colloquial language of 

 every place they staid a few weeks at. He had afterward 

 made voyages to St. Petersburg and to other parts of Europe, 

 including a few weeks in London, and had then come out to the 

 East, where he had been for some years trading and specula- 

 ting in the vai'ious islands. He now spoke Dutch, French, 

 Malay, and Javanese, all equally well, English with a very 

 slight accent, but with perfect fluency, and a most complete 

 knowledge of idiom, in which I often tried to puzzle him in 

 vain. German and Italian were also quite familiar to him, and 

 his acquaintance with European languages included modern 

 Greek, Turkish, Russian, and colloquial Hebrew and Latin. 

 As a test of his power, I may mention that he had made a 

 voyage to the out-of-the-way island of Salibaboo, and had staid 

 there trading a few Aveeks. As I was collecting vocabularies, 

 he told me he thought he could remember some words, and 

 dictated a considerable number. Some time after I met with 

 a short list of words taken down in those islands, and in every 

 case they agreed with those he had given me. He used to 

 sing a Hebrew drinking-song, which he had learned from some 

 Jews with whom he had once travelled, and astonished by join- 

 ing in their conversation, and had a never-ending fund of tale 

 and anecdote about the people he had met and the places he 

 had visited. 



In most of the villages of this part of Ceram are schools 

 and native school-masters, and the inhabitants have been long- 

 converted to Christianity. In the larger villages there are 

 European missionaries ; but there is little or no external dif- 

 ference between the Christian and Alfuro villages, nor, as far 

 as I have seen, m their inhabitants. The people seem more 

 decidedly Papuan than those of Gilolo. They are darker in 

 coloi", and a number of them have' the frizzly Paupan hair; 



