454 The Aru Islands, 



goes on alternately with vocif evens talking of men, women, 

 and children, till long after I am in my mosquito-curtain and 

 sound asleep. 



At this place I obtained some light on the complicated 

 mixture of races in Aru, which would utterly confound an 

 ethnologist. Many of the natives, though equally dark with 

 the others, have little of the Papuan j^hysiognomy, but have 

 more delicate features of the European type, with more glos- 

 sy, curling hair. These at first quite jDuzzled me, for they have 

 no more resemblance to Malay than to Papuan, and the dark- 

 ness of skin and hair would forbid the idea of Dutch inter- 

 mixture. Listening to their conversation, however, I detect- 

 ed some words that were familiar to me. "Accabo " was one ; 

 and to be sure that it was not an accidental resemblance, I 

 asked the speaker in Malay what " accabo " meant, and was 

 told it meant " done or finished " — a true Portuguese word, 

 Avith its meaning retained. Again, I heard the word " jafui" 

 often repeated, and could see, without inquiry, that its mean- 

 ing was " he's gone," as in Portuguese. " Porco," too, seems 

 a common name, though the people have no idea of its Euro- 

 pean meaning. This cleared up the difiiculty. I at once un- 

 derstood that some early Portuguese traders had penetrated to 

 these islands, and mixed with the natives, influencing their 

 language, and leaving in their descendants for many genera- 

 tions the visible characteristics of their race. If to this we 

 add the occasional mixture of Malay, Dutch, and Chinese with 

 the indigenous Papuans, we have no reason to wonder at the 

 curious varieties of form and feature occasionally to be met 

 with in Aru. In this very house there was a Macassar man, 

 with an Aru wife and a family of mixed children. In Dobbo 

 I saw a Javanese and an Amboyna man, each with an Aru 

 wife and family ; and as this kind of mixture has been going 

 on for at least three hundred years, and probably much long- 

 er, it has produced a decided effect on the physical character- 

 istics of a considerable portion of the population of the islands, 

 more especially in Dobbo and the parts nearest to it. 



March 2%th, — The orang-kaya being very ill with fever, 

 had begged to go home, and had arranged with one of the 

 men of the house to go on with me as his substitute. Now 

 that I wanted to move, the bugbear of the pirates was brought 



