THREE PARTIES IN ERR00R. 259 



laved in order to collect shells, got benighted, and 

 arrived at Keriam some time after dark. The 

 natives treated them kindly however, and Dzoom 

 walked with them to Beeka, where they were obliged 

 to come in order to make a signal for a boat by 

 firing a pistol. 



The island of Erroob is about eight miles in 

 circumference, or three miles long by two in width, 

 and does not contain much above a hundred full- 

 grown men. 



It is singular to find in such a narrow space, and 

 small community, two or three separate parties, 

 sometimes or often at war with each other, each 

 occupying their own district, and guarding their 

 frontiers from their neighbours. We could not 

 make out that they had any regularly constituted 

 chiefs, or anything like hereditary authority. 

 Seewai and Mammoos were virtually the chiefs or 

 heads, each of their own party, but their authority 

 seemed rather that of force of character or intellect, 

 or the result of circumstances, than that of law, 

 compact, or custom. Who was the chief among 

 the Kaiderry party we could not make out. 



On relating at Kaiderry this afternoon the skir- 

 mish I had seen in the morning, one of the men 

 said very quietly, "baes, baes !"* which, on con- 

 sulting the vocabulary afterwards, I had the satis- 



* The sound was exactly that of our English "base!" which, 

 considering the meaning of the word, is a curious coincidence, 

 but not the only one in the words that were collected. 



s2 



