CH. VII TO SANGIB AND TALAVT 169 



entomologists have mistaken it for a moth, but that my 

 specimen proves beyond doubt that it is a true butterfly, 

 and that its nearest alHes, curiously enough, are the little 

 ' blues.' We left Mangarang the same day, and a few hours 

 afterwards arrived at Beo. Here the ' capitain laut ' came 

 on board, and told us a terrible story of sickness and 

 death. Out of a population of nearly nine thousand in 

 the neighbourhood no fewer than three thousand had 

 died within the space of a few months. The rajah was 

 dead ; the president rajah, the djugugu, the father, mother, 

 and the brothers and sisters of the capitain laut were all 

 dead ; and the village was still stricken with severe sickness. 



I went ashore with the Eesident and Controleur to 

 inspect the village, and to see if anything could be done to 

 relieve the suffering people. 



We first visited an old German missionary named 

 Eichter, who had spent the greater part of his life in that 

 remote and fever-stricken mission. He expressed no par- 

 ticular wish to leave his exile even for a time, nor any 

 desire to revisit his fatherland and civilisation, but seemed 

 quite content to live the remainder of his life and to die on 

 the scene of his lifelong labours. Poor man, his visit from 

 us was destined to be the last he received from any white 

 man, for a few weeks or months after we left the news 

 arrived that he had fallen a victim to the fever in Beo. 



The walk through the village and the glimpses I caught 

 of the people were perhaps as depressing as anything I had 

 experienced in the East Indies. The numerous deserted 

 and tumble-down huts, the long rank vegetation even in 

 the principal paths of the village, and the still heavy 

 pestilential atmosphere seemed to whisper death and dis- 

 ease at every step ; and the lean gaunt figures of the men 

 and women, with their painfully slow and weary move- 

 ments, told only too eloquently the story of their sufferings, 



