162 TRAVELS IN TEE EAST UTDIAN ABCHIPELAGO. 



ing for monthsj and even yearSj in their miserable 

 dwellings. Here many perfect specimens of the 

 ricMy - colored Cassis jtariwiea appeared, and also 

 that strangely-marked shell, the CypTGea inappa^ or 

 "map cowry," so named from the in'egrdar light- 

 colored line over its back where the two edgea of 

 the mantle meet when the animal is fully expanded. 

 They had crawled into the huhis that had been 

 sunk for fish at a depth of several fathoms. 



The trading was can'ied on only in Malay, bat 

 when I offered a price, which was higher or lower than 

 they had expected, they frequently consulted with 

 each other in their own peculiai* dialect or hahma. 

 This the opziener, who was a native of the city of 

 Amboina, was as totally nnable to understand as I. 

 He also assured me that even the natives at Laiiki, 

 from which we had walked io half an hour, could 

 only understand an occasional word of the hahma of 

 this villiige, and that the people of neither village 

 could understand a word of the hahma of Assilulu, 

 two or three hours' walk beyond Lariki. In fact, as 

 a rule, every commimity that is under one rajah, and 

 this is generally but one village, has its own peculiar 

 dialect, which is so different from the dialects of 

 every adjoining village, that all are objiged to learn 

 Malay in order to carry on any trade or hold any 

 communication mth their nearest neighbors. The 

 hahma is never a written language, and appears to 

 be constantly changing, for, at the city of Amboina, 

 the natives have completely lost their dialect since 

 the foreigners settled among them, and now can only 

 speak with each other in Malay. The great diver- 



