CHAP. XXXI.] NATIVE TALE. 247 



lung ! " said he, " who ever heard of such a name ? — ang- 

 lang — anger-lang — that can't be the name of your country ; 

 you are playing with us." Then he tried to give a con- 

 vincing illustration. " My country is Wanumbai— any- 

 body can say Wanumbai. I'm an ' orang-Wanumbai ; ' 

 but, N-glung ! who ever heard of such a name ? Do tell 

 us the real name of your country, and then when you are 

 gone we shall know how to talk about you." To this 

 luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose 

 nothing but assertion, and the whole party remained 

 firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other 

 deceiving them. They then attacked me on another point 

 — what all the animals and birds and insects and shells 

 were preserved so carefully for. They had often asked me 

 this before, and I had tried to explain to them that they 

 would be stuffed, and made to look as if alive, and 

 people in my country would go to look at them. But this 

 was not satisfying ; in my country there must be many 

 better things to look at, and they could not believe I 

 would take so much trouble with their birds and beasts 

 just for people to look at. They did not want to look at 

 them ; and we, who nia-de calico and glass and knives, and 

 all sorts of wonderful things, could not want things from 

 Aru to look at. They had evidently been thinking about 

 it, and had at length got what seemed a very satisfactory 

 theory ; for the same old man said to me, in a low mys- 



