CH. vn TO SANGIB AND TALAUT 181 



Twelve short sticks are hung upon a string, marked 

 with notches from one to twelve, and a hook is placed 

 between the stick bearing the number of notches corre- 

 sponding to the hour which was last struck and the next 

 one. The hours are struck by the djaga on a large 

 gong. 



Unfortunately my watch had stopped, so that I was 

 unable to test the accuracy of this primitive sand-glass, but 

 Mr. Steller told me that it kept very good time. 



When we returned to bed that evening, after spending 

 the day with the Stellers, we found the rajah and his wife 

 waiting to receive us. The house was lighted by ordinary 

 paraffin lamps, and the numerous attendants and retainers 

 of the court who had retired to rest were lying asleep all 

 over the floor of the entrance haU. We picked our way to 

 om- compartment over the prostrate sleeping forms, and 

 to the music of the concerted snores of some hundred 

 people we soon fell asleep. 



The following morning, after a delicious bath in the cool 

 stream behind the mission house, I started off, in a canoe lent 

 to me for the purpose by Mr. Steller, for an inspection of the 

 coral reef. After dragging the canoe over the sandbanks 

 at the mouth of the river, I skirted along the reef until 

 I came to a spot where a number of women were collecting 

 shellfish, and then I ran the canoe on to the reef and got 

 out. Although the reefs are very much the same as they 

 are in some places on the coast of Talisse, I found a few 

 things which were new to me. The chief peculiarity was 

 an extraordinary number of brittle stars, some of them 

 ornamented with the most brilliant colours. I remember 

 one in particular, with its arms striped with broad green and 

 yellow bands, the disc being marked with spots and streaks 

 of the same colours. 



For the first time I found on this reef one of those 



