i8 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



jackets, low waistcoats, white or coloured starched 

 shirts, coloured ties, black trousers, and brown boots. 

 We were interested to find that the great bulk of the 

 stuff from which clothes are made in Amboina is im- 

 ported from England, and we were assured by a merchant 

 who was interested in the trade that a man can dress 

 himself in so-called European fashion as cheaply in 

 Amboina as he can in this countr3\ 



An agreeable feature of life at Amboina, as at other 

 places in the Netherlands Indies, is the hospitality of 

 the Dutch people. A stranger of at all respectable 

 social position is expected to introduce himself to the 

 club, and the residents in the place feel genuinel}^ hurt 

 if he fails to do so. The Societat, or " Soce," as it is 

 everywhere called, is more of a cafe than a club accord- 

 ing to English ideas, and it exists for conviviality and 

 gossiping rather than for newspaper reading and card 

 playing. It is not even a restaurant in the sense that 

 many English clubs are ; the members meet there in 

 the evening but they invariably dine, as they lunch, 

 at home. On the verandah in front of the club is a 

 round table, at which sit after dark large men in white 

 clothes smoking cigars and drinking various drinks. 

 The foreigner approaches with what courage he may 

 and introduces himself by name to the party severally. 

 They make a place for him in the circle and there- 

 after, with a courtesy which a group of Englishmen 

 would find difiiculty in imitating, they continue the 

 conversation in the language of the foreigner. An 

 Englishman is at first a little staggered by the number 

 of pait {i.e. bitter, the name for gin and bitters) and 



