CHAP, XIV (.] 



THE NATITES. 



389 



strange European production— a needle with a head, but 

 no eye i Even paper, which we thmw away hourly as 

 ruhbish, was to tliem a curiosity ; and I often saw them 

 picking up little scraps which had been swept out of 

 the house, and carefully pntting them away in their betel- 

 poncli. Then when I took my morning coffee and evening 

 tea, how many were the strange things displayed to them ! 

 Teapot, teacups, teaspoons, were all more or less curious in 

 their eyes ; tea, sugar, biscuit, and butter, were articles of 

 hnman ecnisumption seen by many of thejii for the first 

 tima One asks if that whitish powder is " gnla passir" 

 (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse 

 lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture ; and 

 the biscuit is coiosidered a sort of European sago-cake, 

 which tlie inhabitants of those remote regions are obliged 

 to use in the absence of the genuine article. My pumuits 

 were of coui"Se utterly beyond tlieir coniprehensioti They 

 continuaUy asked me what white people did with the birds 

 and insects I took so much care to preserve. If I only 

 kept what was beautiful, they might perhaps couiprehend 

 it \ but to see ants and lUes and small ugly insects put 

 away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and they 

 were convinced, that there must be some medical or 

 magical nse for them which I kept a profound secret. 

 The^e people wei-e in fact as completely unacquauited with 

 ci%Tlized life as the Indians of the iiocky Mountains, or 

 the savages of Central Africa— yet a steamship, that 

 highest triumph of Imman ingenuity, with its little tluat- 

 ing epitome of Euroi>ean civilization, touches monthly at 

 Cajeli, twenty miles oif; while at Aniboyna, only sixty 

 miles distant, a European population and government have 

 been establislied tor inoi-e than three hundred yeara. 



Having seen a good many of the natives of Bourn from 

 different villages, and from distant parts of the island, I 

 feel convinced that tliey consist of two distinct races now 

 paitially amalgamated. The larger portion are Malays of 

 the Celebes type, often exactly snnilar to the Tomtire 

 people of East Celebes, wliom I found settled in liatciiian ; 

 while others altogether restiinble the Alfuros of Cemm. 

 The inilux of two races can easily be uccunuted fur. The 

 Sula Islands, which ai*e closely connected with East 



