478 The Aru Islands. 



a great row, and it was feared there would be a fight about 

 it — not two men only, but a party of a dozen or twenty on 

 each side, a regular battle with knives and krisses ; but after 

 a large amount of talk it passed off quietly, and we heard 

 nothing about it afterward. 



Most Europeans, being gifted by nature with a luxuriant 

 growth of hair upon their faces, think it disfigures them, and 

 keep up a continual struggle against her by mowing down 

 every morning the crop which has sprouted up during the 

 preceding twenty-four hours. Now the men of Mongolian 

 race are, naturally, just as many of us want to be. They 

 mostly pass their lives with faces as smooth and beardless 

 as an infant's. But shaving seems an instinct of the human 

 race ; for many of these people, having no hair to take off 

 their faces, shave their heads. Others, however, set resolutely 

 to work to force nature to give them a beard. One of the 

 chief cock-fighters at Dobbo was a Javanese, a sort of master 

 of the ceremonies of the ring, who tied on the spurs and acted 

 as backer-up to one of the combatants. This man had suc- 

 ceeded, by assiduous cultivation, in raising a pair of mustaches 

 which were a triumph of art, for they each contained about 

 a dozen hairs more than three inches long, and which, being 

 well greased and twisted, were distinctly visible (when not 

 too far off) as a black thread hanging down on each side of 

 his mouth. But the beard to match was the difficulty, for 

 nature had cruelly refused to give him a rudiment of hair on 

 his chin, and the most talented gardener could not do much 

 if he had nothing to cultivate. But true genius triumj)hs over 

 difficulties. Although there was no hair proper on the chin, 

 there happened to be, rather on one side of it, a small mole 

 or freckle which contained (as such things frequently do) a 

 few stray hairs. These had been made the most off". They 

 had reached four or five inches in length, and formed another 

 black thread dangling from the left angle of the chin. The 

 owner carried this as if it were something remarkable (as it 

 certainly was) ; he often felt it affectionately, passed it be- 

 tween his fingers, and was evidently extremely proud of his 

 mustaches and beard ! 



One of the most surprising things connected with Aru was 

 the excessive cheapness of all articles of European or native 



