240 THE ARU ISLANDS. [chap. xxxi. 



foliage which drooped over the water, at others settling 

 down on the damp rock or on the edges of muddy pools. 

 A little way on several paths branched off through patches 

 of second-growth forest to cane-fields, gardens, and scat- 

 tered houses, beyond which again the dark wall of verdure 

 striped with tree-trunks, marked out the limits of the 

 primeval forests. The voices of many birds promised 

 good shooting, and on my return I found that my boys 

 had already obtained two or three kinds I had not seen 

 before ; and in the evening a native brought me a rare and 

 beautiful species of ground-thrush (Pitta novte-guinefe) 

 hitherto only known from New Guinea. 



As I improved my acquaintance with them I became 

 much interested in these people, who are a fair sample of 

 the true savage inhabitants of the Aru Islands, tolerably 

 free from foreign admixture. Tlie house I lived in con- 

 tained four or five families, and there were generally from 

 six to a dozen visitors besides. They kept up a continual 

 row from morning till night — talking, laughing, shouting, 

 without intermission — not very pleasant, but interesting 

 as a study of national character. My boy Ali said to me, 

 " Banyak quot bitchara Orang Aru " (The Aru people are 

 very strong talkers), never having been accustomed to such 

 eloquence either in his own or any other country he had 

 hitherto visited. Of an evening the men, having got over 

 their first shyness, began to talk to me a little, asking 



