484: The Aru Islands. 



casks were filled, and clothes and mat-sails mended and 

 strengthened for the run home before the strong east wind. 

 Almost every day groups of natives arrived from the most 

 distant j^arts of the islands, with cargoes of bananas and su- 

 gar-cane to exchange for tobacco, sago, bread, and other lux- 

 uries, before the general departure. The Chinamen killed 

 their fat pig and made their parting feast, and kindly sent 

 me some pork, and a basin of birds'-nest stew, which had 

 very little more taste than a dish of vermicelli. My boy Ali 

 returned from Wanumbai, where I had sent him alone for a 

 fortnight to buy paradise birds and prepare the skins; he 

 brought me sixteen glorious specimens, and had he not been 

 very ill with fever and ague might have obtained twice the 

 number. He had lived with the people whose house I had 

 occupied, and it is a proof of their goodness, if fairly treated, 

 that although he took with him a quantity of silver dollars 

 to pay for the birds they caught, no attempt was made to 

 rob him, which might have been done with the most perfect 

 impunity. He was kindly treated when ill, and was brought 

 back to me with the balance ot the dollars he had not spent. 

 The Wanumbai people, like almost all the inhabitants of 

 the Aru Islands, are perfect savages, and I saw no signs of 

 any religion. There are, however, three or four villages on 

 the coast where schoolmasters from Amboyna reside, and 

 the people are nominally Christians, and are to some extent 

 educated and civilized. I could not get much real knowl- 

 edge of the customs of the Aru people during the short time 

 I was among them, but they have evidently, been consider- 

 ably influenced by their long association with Mohammedan 

 traders. They often bury their dead, although the national 

 custom is to expose the body on a raised stage till it decom- 

 poses. Though there is no limit to the number of wives a 

 man may have, they seldom exceed one or two. A wife is 

 I'egularly purchased from the parents, the price being a large 

 assortment of articles, always including gongs, crockery, and 

 cloth. They told me that some of the tribes kill the old men 

 and women when they can no longer work, but I saw many 

 very many old and decrepit people, who seemed pretty well 

 attended to. I^o doubt all wdio have miich intercourse with 

 the Bugis and Ceramese traders gradually lose many of their 



