-50 
We slept until the clouds had done their worst, and then strolled out 
to do a little shopping. I ordered a pair of wmte kid Scndds, 
made by hand and to order, for three guilders. 
Our hotel room looks out on the local movie theatre, where a 
special childrens' performance was given at 6. 15, the l«Jtn lnsxaxj. 
ment of "Tailspin Tommy", and all through the evening roars of 
excited laughter rolled into our room. 
April 16 - • 
Buitenbos invited us to spend a couple of days at .^Is father-in- 
Law*s Dl-ntation across the bay, and we started early in the morning, 
liter e brief SSlk around town, we came to his house, where his wife 
feaches tennis and runs a florist business. In front of the house 
was his prau, a good-sized row boat, but beca use of the she llow 
hPPch we had to wade out to the boat. Williams lost neart when he 
saw Shit we w re doing, but Bill and I took off our. shoes and picked 
our wav gingerly out to the prau, Buitenbos explaining that "it is 
tie FaLion^n AmbSn." Four men' rowed us across the bay which took 
about half an hour, and we came into the beach there on the crest of 
a wave, and waded ashore. 
Mrs. Ernsten, B's mother-in-lFW, ca e down to the beach to 
welcome us, a neat little old Malay woman in a pretty blue strong 
and long white jacket. P ?pa Ernsten greeted us on tne verandah, 
a fat! light-brown Swede of 78 years, unable to do much any more 
except shuffle in bedroom slippers from the dining-room tothe 
porch rocking-chair and bad again. In his youth w.s Controller 
St Dobo dur ng the days of native insurrections. The gun, with which 
he £l?ed man? g nSlves', is now used by his son-in-law to shoot cuscus. 
In 1909 he started this coconut plantation on the beach, and divides 
his time between the plantation and his spacious town house across 
the water. B. told us that his father had been given e medal by 
the Dutch government, and that it was not an ordinary decoration but 
a good medal: he gets F1.200 a year on it, and when he dies his wife 
will get Fl. 100 a year. 
We went for a walk in the forest in back of the plantation, and 
Bill found Polyrachus, and the nest it makes on the under side of 
leaves. Parrots flew over our heads, screaming, but too high to get 
e Sood gllSpse of them. Fruits of all kinds, both wild and culti- 
vated, wereall over the place. We ?rank coconut water ate wild 
passion fruit, and saw nutmeg and clove trees. . J ne " " e * £ f 
durian trees here, and in several places we saw the smair thatched 
shelters where the natives watch for the fruit to fall. We saw one 
SSt come craSSng Sown to the ground, and realized how dangerous 
it is to stop for long under a tree that drops such heavy spiked 
fruit . 
Back at the house for lunch, we found that Mrs. Buitenbos 
had sent over by prau an interesting reistafel, acco panied by 
a delicious small fried fish, chicken, and saiyo - a locjl dish 
consisting of green leaves of trees, stewed in coconut milk. Every- 
thing is fried in coconut oil, B. explaining that "this is a good 
system; it is not a. good system to fry in butter". We had on the 
table three kinds of bananas, small fruits called lansop (something 
like passion fruit) and gondoria (something like a small mango) 
the most delicious mangoiteens, kanari nuts, rambutan, sago bread. 
The mangosteens are deep brownish red on the outside, and a beautiful 
