CHAP. XXXI.] A LEGEND. 261 



people did not like them, and wanted them to go away, 

 but they would not go, and so it came to fighting, and 

 many Aru men were killed, and some, along with the chief, 

 were taken prisoners, and carried away by the strangers. 

 Some of the speakers, however, said that he was not carried 

 away, but went away in his own boat to escape from the 

 foreifiners, and went to the sea and never came back again. 

 But they all believe that the chief and the people that 

 went with him still live in some foreign country ; and if 

 they could but find out where, they would send for them 

 to come back again. Now having some vague idea that 

 white men must know every country beyond the sea, they 

 wanted to know if I had met their people in my country 

 or in the sea. They thought they must be there, for they 

 could not imagine where else they could be. They had 

 sought for them everywhere, they said — on the land and in 

 the sea, in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and 

 in the sky, and could not find them ; therefore, they must 

 be in my country, and they begged me to tell them, for I 

 must surely know, as I came from across the great sea. I 

 tried to explain to them that their friends eould not have 

 reached my country in small boats ; and that there were 

 plenty of islands like Aru all about the sea, which they 

 would be sure to find. Besides, as it was so long ago, the 

 chief and all the people must be dead. But they quite 

 laughed at this idea, and said they were sure they were alive, 



