IN BUMU, 



401 



CHAPTKR II. 



AT LAKE WAEOLO. 



The Late — The ^ple there — Garmenfs— Cultivation— Arms and acooutre- 

 menfcs — Mamage— BeAth rites— Superstitions abuut the lake—Esplana- 

 tion of its pttsitioii nnJ of the absence of fish in it — New birils — Great 

 disapi>oiutraent— Hetiirti to Kajeli— *Thence to Amboina — Compelled to 

 leav^e the Moluccas — A kind farewell — Leave for Timor. 



Mb. Bebgmann, tlie Post-iiolder, bad hoped, he said, to find 

 some 2D0O people li\ing ronnd the lake, and to stay for at 

 least a week or ten days ; but we found only some seven or 

 eight houses as poor as the few we had already passed, and he 

 decided ou the afternoon of our arrival to start back in a couple 

 of days to the coast. This was a grievous disiipjioiiitmeut to 

 me after so difficult and arduous a journey. As he would not 

 be induced to stay, and without the presence of the Rajahs who 

 would accompauy him I could obtain nothing, either in the 

 way of food or of porterage, I could only make the most, 

 therefore, of the few hours at my disposal. I devoted the 

 remainder of the first day to seeing something of the people, 

 and in sketching their features. 



The lake mountaineers, living so far removed from aU coast 

 interference, and rarely, if ever, visiting the shore, should be 

 better representatives of the Buruese than the low country 

 tribes who are now quite tinctured in manners and customs, aa 

 weO as in race, by an infinite variety of influences — and where 

 indeed is the ntce now to be found not so contaminated by 

 extraneous forces ? The ideas as well as the manufactures of 

 western lands are beginning to be felt and seen in the huts 

 of the rudest tribes, and among the people the most distant . 

 from civilisation. It is therefore more incumbent than ever 

 on all travellers to record with the utmost fidelity every 

 minutiao of the customs and ideas of the rude peoples they / 

 encounter, for with the disappearance of their untainted 



2 B 



