IN TEE MOLUCCAS. 293 



a year to the village. TJie people are Mahomedans, and their 

 language was quite unintelligible to us, being the bahasa negorai 

 or the old language of the country, which the Sirani consider 

 it beneath them to speak, just as they imagine it derogatory to 

 their more elevated position as Sirani to wear the head-cloth 

 and Malay sarong. The largest edifice in the village is the 

 Baluai, the council room, where the rajah, the priests, and the 

 chiefs of the village hold their deliberations. The rajah of 

 Paso told me that his Baluai had fallen to ruins, but as the old 

 bahasa, which they had quite discarded, might alone be spoken 

 in it, they could not rebuild it. The Baluai corresponds very 

 nearly with the Balai of Sumatra, and both words have pro- 

 bably a Polynesian origin. The manners of the villagers here 

 are simpler and far less haughty than those of the Sirani ; but 

 they seem poorer and less advanced in civilised ways. 



After some delay, but without any unpleasantness, we ob- 

 tained a boat and rowers and started for Wai. From Tengah- 

 tengah we sailed through what might have been a bay in 

 Fairyland: the coral gardens beneath our keel, so beautiful 

 that we found it difficult to proceed far without bidding our 

 rowers to rest on their oars to let us admire each more 

 wonderful spot; around us the white shore line, in front of 

 a dark green palm-fringe ; behind us the island of Haruku 

 embowered in foliage, and the distant peaks of Ceram. 

 When at length we ran our prau on the shore in the mid- 

 afternoon in front of the village of Wai, the unreal nature of 

 the scene seemed complete, so buried was the place in sleep, — 

 not a moving creature was to be seen anywhere on the shore 

 or in the village, not a sound of life broke the stillness of its 

 tree-shaded " straats," not the bark of a dog, or the note of a 

 bird from among the trees, whose branches hung listless in 

 the broiling sun. So heavy lay the death-like silence on all 

 around that we felt as if we ought not to speak above a 

 whisper, or to tread except on tip-toe, as, led by one of our 

 boatmen, we slowly made our way to the house of the rajah, 

 who, after a time, appeared in his sleeping attire, in a half- 

 bewildered and confused state at finding a couple of white 

 strangers in his verandah. At last, when he had slowly 

 grasped the reason of our unexpected advent, we came to terms 

 with him for an unoccupied house of his a few doors from 



