CHAP. xxxT.] NATirE TALK. 4gj 



Ghmamen go to sell their things ? It is always in the great 

 sea — its name is Joiij? ; tell \m all about it." In vain I 

 inq^uired what they knew about it; they kne^ nothiag 

 but that it was called " Jons " and was alwavs in the sea. 

 and Wii3 a very great ship, and concluded with, " Perhaps 

 that is your country ? " Findinj? that 1 could not or 

 would not tell them anything about "Jong," there came 

 more regrets that I would not tell them the real name of 

 my country ; and then a long string of compliments, to the 

 cfiect that I was a much better sort of a person tliau the 

 Bugis and Chinese, who sometimes came to trade with 

 them, for I gave thein things for nothing, and did not try 

 to cheat them. How long would I stop? was the next 

 earnest inquiry. Would I stay two or three months ? 

 They would get me plenty of birds and animals, aud I 

 might soon finish all the goods I had brought, and then, 

 said the old spokesman, "Dont go away, but send for 

 more things from Dobbo, and stay here a year or two." 

 And then again the old story, " Do tell us the name of 

 your country. We know the Bugis men, and the Macassar 

 men, and the Java men, and the China men ; only you, we 

 don't know from what country you come. Ung-lung ! it 

 can't be ; I know that is not the name of yomr country 

 Seeing no end to this long talk, 1 said 1 was tired, and 

 wanted to go to sleep; so after begging — ^one a little bit of 

 dry fish for his supper, and another a little salt to eat %vith 

 his sago — they went off very quietly, and 1 went outside 

 and took a sti'oll round the house b}* moonlight, thinking of 

 the simple people and the strange productions of Avm, and 

 then turned iu under my mosquito curtain, to sleep with 

 a sense of perfect security in the midst of these good- 

 natured savages. 



We now had seven or eight days of hot and dry 

 weather, which reduced the little ri%^er to a sueces.sion of 

 shallow pools connected by the smallest possible thread of 

 trickling water. If there were a dry season like that of 

 Macassar, the Arn Islands would be nninhabitable, as there 

 is no part of them much above a hundred feet high ; and 

 the whole being a mass of porous coi-allino rock, allows 

 the surface water rapidly to escape. The only dry season 

 tbey have is for a month or two about September or 



