144 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



we cauglit a view of the blue ocean, and soon de- 

 scended to tlie village of Hitu-lama, " Old Hitn." 

 Tlie raj all received me most kindly into tiis liouse, 

 and assigned me a cliamber. Large numbers of cliil 

 dren quickly gathered, and the rajah explained to 

 them that I had come to buy shells, insects, and every 

 curious thing they might bring. As it was high 

 water, and good shells could only be found at low 

 tide, I asked them to search for lizards, and soon I 

 was surprised to see them coming with a number of 

 real "flying-dragons," not such impossible monsters 

 as the Chinese delight to place on their temples and 

 vases, but small lizards, Draco volans^ each provided 

 with a broad fold in the skin along either side of 

 the body, analogous to that of our flying-squirrel, and 

 for a similar purpose, not really for flying, but to act 

 as a parachute to sustain the animal in the air, while 

 it makes long leaps from branch to branch. Another 

 lizard, of which they brought nearly a dozen speci- 

 mens in a couple of hours, had a body about six 

 inches long and a tail nearly as much longer. Know- 

 ing how impossible it is to capture these agile and 

 wary animals, I tried to ascertain how they succeeded 

 in surprising so many, but they all refused to tell, 

 apparently from superstitious motives, and to this 

 day the mystery is unsolved. When these specimens 

 were brought to me they were always in small joints 

 of bamboo, and when one escaped the natives gener- 

 ally refused to try to catch it in their hands. 



As the tide receded, shells began to come in ; at 

 first the more common species, and rarer ones as the 

 ebbing ceased. My mode of trading with these peo- 



