Chap, xiv.] INCAPACITY FOR COUNTING. 



309 



the camp, by putting groups of objects, such as cartridges, 

 before them, but could not get them to count in their lanc'-uao-e 

 above three — piama, labaima, damma.* They used the word 

 nurra t also, apparently for all higher numbers. It was curious 

 to see their procedure when I put a heap of five or six objects 

 before them. They separated them into groups of two, or two 

 and one, and pointing to the heaps successively said, " labaima, 

 labaima, piama," " two," " two," " one." Though another of 

 my guides had been long with the Whites he had little idea 

 of counting. After he had picked up two dozen birds for me 

 and seen them packed away, I asked him how many there 

 were in the tin : he said Six. I wish I had paid more attention 

 to the language of these Gudangs. No doubt amongst such 

 people language changes with remarkable rapidity, especially 

 where, as here, tribes are mixed, and some of the words at 

 least seem to have changed since MacGillivray's time. 



The Blacks are wonderfully forgetful, and seem never to 

 carry an idea long in their heads. One day when Longway 

 was out with me he kept constantly repeating to himself " two 

 shilling," a sum I had promised him if I shot a Rifle-bird, and 

 he constantly reminded me of it, evidently with his thoughts 

 full of the idea. After the day was over, and we were near 

 home, he suddenly left me and disappeared : he had been 

 taken with a sudden desire to smoke his bamboo, and had 

 gone by a short cut to the camp. When I found him there 

 he seemed astonished, and to have forgotten about his day's 

 pay altogether. 



The Blacks spend what little money they get in biscuit at 

 the store. And they know that for a florin they ought to get 

 more biscuit than for a shilling, but that is all. Food is their 

 greatest desire. Their use of English is most amusing, 

 especially that of the word " fellow." " This feller gin, this 

 feller gin, this feller boy," said Longway, when I asked whether 

 some young Blacks crouched by the fire were boys or girls. 

 They apply the term also to all kinds of inanimate objects. 

 There are several graves of Blacks near Somerset. I asked 

 Longway what became of the Black fellows when they died ; 

 he said " Flyaway," and that they became White men. 



About 35 miles from Somerset is a tribe of fierce and more 

 powerful Blacks, of which the Gudangs are in great terror. 

 When I wanted some plants which were a little way up a tree, 

 Longway was not at all inclined to climb, but let a sailor who 

 was with me do it. Longway's boy said he could not climb. 



* MacGillivray, "Gudang Dialect." He gives " epiamana elabaiu 

 dama." 



•j- = unora ? MacGillivray. 



