4G0 



THE AMU ISLANDS. 



[CHAF. XXXL 



vincing Dlustratioa. " My country is Wianumbai— any- 

 body can say Wanumbai. I'm an ' orang-Wannmbai ; ' 

 but, N-glnng 1 who ever heard of such a narae ? Do tell 

 Tia the real name oF your country, and then when you are 

 gone we shall know how to talk about you." To this 

 luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose 

 nothing but assertion, and the whole party remained 

 firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other 

 deceiving them. They then attacked rae on another point 

 — what all the animals and birds and insects and shells 

 were preserved so carefully for. They had often asked me 

 this before, and I had tried to explain to them that they 

 would be stuffed, and made to look as if alive, and 

 people in my coantry would go to look at them. But this 

 was not satisfyLug ; in my country there must be many 

 better things to look at, and they could not believe I 

 would take so much trouble with their birds and beasts 

 just for people to look at. They did not want to look at 

 them ; and we, who made calico and glass and ]^llives, and 

 all sorts of wonderful things, could not want tinngs from 

 Am to look at- They had evidently been thinking about 

 it, and had at length got what seemed a very sati.^factory 

 theory; for the same old man said to me, in a low mys- 

 terious voice, A\nmt becomes of them when you go on to 

 the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in boxes," said 

 I. " T\niat did you think became of them ? " They all 

 come to life again, don't they?" said he; and though I 

 tried to Joke it olT, and said if they did we should have 

 plenty to eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept 

 repeating, with an air of deep convicti(jn, " Yes, they all 

 come to life again, that's what they do— they all come to 

 life again." 



After a little while, and a good deal of talking among 

 themselves, he began again—" I know all about it — oh, 

 yes ! Before you came we had rain every day — very wet 

 indeed; now, ever since you have been here, it is hue hot 

 weather. Oh, yes ! I know aU about it ; you can't deceive 

 me." And so I was set down as a conjurer, and was 

 unable to repel the charge. But the conjurer was com- 

 pletely puzzled by the next question : " What," said 

 the old man, "is the great ship, where the Bugis ajid 



