THE NATIVES 123 



Pulo Milo is only about half a square mile in area, but is 

 thickly covered with a growth of pandanus and coconut trees 

 and jungle, above which hundreds of tall slim palms have forced 

 their heads. 



The little village of four houses lies on its eastern shore, 

 fronted by a coral-reef that offers but little impediment to a 

 landing-party : one tall pole, with bunches of palm leaf, stood on 

 the beach — the last we met with. 



The houses were all of quadrangular form, but with a 

 peculiar feature about the roofs ; for the slope from apex to 

 eaves, instead of being straight, was in some markedly rounded, 

 and in others the curve ran unbrokenly across the top from 

 edge to edge. They were thatched with the leaves of the 

 nipah palm, and the side walls, 2 to 4 feet in height, were built 

 of rough-hewn planks laid horizontally, or of slabs of bamboo 

 split and flattened out. The doors were closed by chicks of 

 palm leaf, which in the daytime were propped out to shade the 

 interior from the sun. 



The natives soon overcame their distrust of us, and one 

 evening " Shongshire," the headman, and others from the village, 

 came on board. The former was a stately old gentleman, in 

 spite of his top-hat, and somewhat resembled our old acquaint- 

 ance, " Friend of England." With him was another old man 

 of a most vivacious temperament, who gave us information in 

 a very graphic manner as we all sprawled, chatting, on the 

 cabin roof. 



" There were only about a dozen people in the harbour," he 

 said, " although in his boyhood many lived there ; all however, 

 were now dead from sickness and the ' orang bubu.' The former, 

 he believed, was caused by eating turtle, and a kind of large 

 fish that appeared near the shore at that period. The latter 

 (apparently) were evil spirits that eat men, and are let loose by 

 a wizard." * 



Although the belief in evil spirits is quite as strong as in 



* About this fact I am not certain, for the Malay in which our informant 

 expressed himself was a thing quite siii generis. 



