I Puzzle the Natives. 435 



ceding six months, and which they now sell to the traders, to 

 some of whom they are most likely in debt. Almost all, or I 

 may safely say all, the new arrivals j^ay me a visit, to see with 

 their own eyes the unheard-of phenomenon of a person come 

 to stay at Dobbo who does not trade ! They have their own 

 ideas of the uses that may possibly be made of stuffed birds, 

 beetles, and shells which are not the right shells — that is, 

 " mother-of-pearl." They every day bring me dead and 

 broken shells, such as I can pick up by hundreds on the 

 beach, and seem quite puzzled and distressed when I decline 

 them. If, however, there are any snail-shells among a lot I 

 take them, and ask for more — a principle of selection so ut- 

 terly unintelligible to them that they give it up in despair, or 

 solve the problem by imputing hidden medical virtue to those 

 which they see me preserve so carefully. 



These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of 

 which Malay is the chief ingredient, with the exception of a 

 few Chinese. The natives of Aru, on the other hand, ai'e Pa- 

 puans, with black or sooty-brown skins, woolly or frizzly 

 hair, thick-ridged prominent noses, and rather slender limbs. 

 Most of them wear nothing but a waist-cloth, and a few of 

 them may be seen all day long wandering about the half-de- 

 serted streets of Dobbo offering their little bit of merchan- 

 dise for sale. 



Living in a trader's house, every thing is brought to me 

 as w^ell as to the rest — bundles of smoked tripang, or " beche 

 de mer," looking like sausages which have been rolled in mud 

 and then thrown up the chimney; dried sharks' fins, mother- 

 of-pearl shells, as well as birds of paradise, which, however, 

 are so dirty and so badly preserved that I have as yet found 

 no specimens worth purchasing. When I hardly look at the 

 articles, and make no offer for them, they seem incredulous, 

 and, as if fearing they have misunderstood me, again offer 

 them, and declare what they want in return — knives or to- 

 bacco, or sago, or handkei-chiefs. I then have to endeavor to 

 explain, through any interpreter who may be at hand, that 

 neither tripang nor pearl-oyster shells have any charms for 

 me, and that I even decline to speculate in tortoise-shell, 

 but that any thing eatable I will buy — fish, or turtle, or 

 vegetables of any sort. Almost the only food, however, 



