I.] BIGHARA WITH THE PANGEEANG. 13 



Tridacna were found. I had never met with this except on the 

 floor of a museum, and the first sight of the monstrous shell on a 

 lonely sea -beach is one not easily forgotten. We were more 

 fortunate with the birds, and though a good many were lost in the 

 jungle, we shot a large fruit-eating pigeon which I had hoped might 

 prove to be a new species {CariKypliaga 23ickeringi, Cass.) It had, 

 however, I afterwards found, been once before obtained upon a 

 small island off the Bornean coast by the United States Exploring 

 Expedition. On the shore of the outer lake, close to the sea, we 

 found some curious masses of coarse conglomerate, and several 

 blocks of scoriaceous rock of large size. 



The land in the neighbourhood of the crater-lakes seemed to be 

 but little inhabited, and the only hut we saw was a miserable 

 tumble -down aftair, open on two sides. Near our anchorage, 

 however, the groves of fruit-trees and coconuts hid a good number 

 of scattered dwellings which, like almost every hut throughout 

 Malaysia from the Nicobars to New Guinea, were built upon piles. 

 The house of the Pangerang would have been pleasant enough even 

 for a European to live in, for in a climate where it is "always 

 afternoon " domestic wants are few. On our return visit to him 

 he welcomed us with evident pleasure, and we sat down to tobacco 

 and a long hicliara} Although not dressed in any way to dis- 

 tinguish him from the other natives, with the exception of his 

 turban, he was intellectually of a very different stamp. In his 

 pilgrimage to Mecca, — for he was a Hadji, — he had seen men and 

 things, and evidently felt his superiority to the rest of the islanders. 

 He offered us guides for our excursions, and talked long about the 

 Spaniards, whose reputation for cruelty still seems to linger here, 

 adding that he wished the English would take the island instead. 



^ Tlie meaning of this word the traveller in the Malay Islands is not long in 

 learning. It corresponds to the African palaver, and, whether for business or 

 pleasure, is met with under different names in most countries in the world. Its 

 great art lies in saying as little as possible in the most protracted time. The 

 information usually obtained in a bichara of ordinary length would "boil down," to 

 use the language of the Fourth Estate, into half a dozen lines of letterpress. 



