CHAP. XXXI.] CONVERSATION. 241 



about my country, &c., and in return I questioned them 

 about any traditions they had of their own origin. I had, 

 however, very little success, for I could not possibly make 

 them understand the simple question of where the Aru 

 people first came from. I put it in every possible way to 

 them, but it was a subject quite beyond their speculations; 

 they had evidently never thought of anything of the kind, 

 and were unable to conceive a thing so remote and so 

 unnecessary to be thought about, as their own origin. 

 Finding this hopeless, I asked if they knew when the 

 trade with Aru first began, when the Bugis and Chinese 

 and Macassar men first came in their praus to buy tripang 

 and tortoise-shell, and birds' nests, and Paradise birds ? 

 This they comprehended, but replied that there had always 

 been the same trade as long as they or their fathers recol- 

 lected, but that this was the first time a real white man 

 had come among them, and, said they, " You see how the 

 people come every day from all the villages round to look 

 at you." This was very flattering, and accoimted for the 

 great concourse of visitors which I had at first imagined 

 was accidental. A few years before I had been one of the 

 gazers at the Zoolus and the Aztecs in London. Now the 

 tables were turned upon me, for I was to these people a 

 new and strange variety of man, and had the honour of 

 affording to them, in my own person, an attractive exhi- 

 bition, gratis. 



VOL. II. E 



