250 UNUSUAL HOSTILITY. 



in vain. In short, even if willing to go, he was 

 evidently not his own master, and being a very 

 worthy, good creature, he could not resist the en- 

 treaties of his family ; so at last we left him with 

 them, and went to Keriam. Here I found only 

 women and children, and on going up to the huts I 

 perceived not only new outer fencing, but poles of 

 bamboo slung from the trees between the huts, and 

 strings passing from one to the other, dividing all 

 the interior into small square spaces. On pointing 

 to these they all cried, " galla ! galla!" an expres- 

 sion I had not heard before. 



Mammoos, they said, was gone to get ketai (yams), 

 which I did not believe, as that is usually a woman's 

 business. As we returned to the boat, a man passed 

 by the village, fully armed with bows and arrows, 

 and went hastily on to Beeka. On returning to the 

 ship, we could see small parties of men and women 

 posted at different parts of the edge of the bushes, 

 between Beeka and the pathway, and eight or ten 

 armed men stood on a bare ridge, as if expecting an 

 enemy. 



Just before noon Captain Blackwood and Mr. 

 Evans landed at Beeka, opposite the ship, to take a 

 meridian altitude, on perceiving which, the armed 

 men ran down from the heights, and seemed rather 

 inclined to be insolent. One of them drew an 

 arrow across the back of Mr. Evans's neck as he 

 was observing with the artificial horizon, and an- 

 other raised a drawn bow at one of our men. No 



