WHITE — A Sketch of the Life of Samuel White. 147 



arrows, these men were always . civil in showing the 

 way, and invariably begged for a little tobacco; the 

 women were rarely seen, and if met suddenly, they 

 ran into the scrub till I passed, or if natives: were 

 rwith me they would stand on one side while we passed. 

 Birds were not numerous, the call of the great bird of paradise 

 was heard several times, but they were found to be young 

 males or females. The news of my doings had reached 

 Wanumbi before me, and all the boys and young men were off 

 hunting with their bows and arrows, and brought in hundreds 

 of different things daily, All sorts of rubbish, from a piece 

 of fungus to a tod of paradise, each trifle wrapped and tied up 

 in a separate leaf. The dealing and bargaining for these 

 things or such as I wanted was at times laughable, while at 

 other time very aggravating. They are more persistent and 

 haggling kind of dealers, especially the Macassar men, they 

 have no conscience, frequently asking a hundred times more 

 than they will take, and never seem satisfied. These men will 

 present a thing twenty times after being refused, always with 

 the same cry, Tombocoo (Tobacco) or Mania Mania (beads), or 

 pise (knife), or whatever he may have asked for first. They 

 will try on many little schemes in dealing, such as presenting 

 the worst article first. A man will tie up single beetles in 

 separate leaves and offer one, and when that is purchased, he 

 will present another, and so on for a dozen times he will 

 present a small bird, while the rest are hidden in the cloth 

 around his waist. I think these people have but little food to 

 spare as the insignificant quantities that were offered me were 

 not worth speaking, of. Two small sweet potatoes have been 

 offered for fifty times their value, one hen's egg, half a bunch 

 of bananas, one cocoanut, and so on, if what tney ask be paid, 

 when they frequently say "tauba" (more). They swarm 

 around the camp all day long, fill the place we live in, and will 

 not move to allow us to move about to get our food, making a 

 perfect babel of voices, they talk loud and incessantly, they 

 are the noisiest people I ever came across. Nevertheless they 

 have many redeeming qualities, they are civil and obliging, if 

 it costs them nothing to be so highly good tempered and moral, 

 and above all they are strictly honest, that is they do not steal, 

 although they pried into anything we had, they did not take 

 anything without asking, and I had many things laying about 

 Avhich were very tempting, especially red beads among the 

 young people, a theft could be easily committeed, and I could 

 never find the thief. There were very many fine young men 



