1812. BACHAPIN PAINTINGS. — SERRAKUTU'S HOUSES. 453 
visit. He was then wearing Gert's hat, which he had borrowed for 
the day ; and perhaps he mistook the smile, which his incongruous 
dress occasioned in rae, for joy at meeting with him at home. He 
asked me to show him the sketch, and this obhged me to enter into 
the same explanation of my object in drawing it, as I had given to his 
nephew MattTvi. He was in the same manner as the Chief, sur- 
rounded by a party of his friends : their employment appeared to 
be a mixture of work and conversation. 
As he had, a day or two before, invited me to see Jiia house, I 
now requested him to show it : on which he immediately rose, and, 
followed by his friends or attendants, conducted me to the house of 
his younger wife ; while Mattivi and his party proceeded home- 
ward. She exhibited her paintings in a manner which evinced that 
she was well satisfied with her own performance. They were, the 
figures of several animals, rudely drawn, with a paint of white earth, 
against the front-wall of the house. Among these I distinguished 
two lizards ; but the rest might have enabled a fanciful person to see 
in them, any animal he pleased, or that he wished to see. They 
were, however, intended to represent some of the common animals 
of the country. 
He then took me to the house at which he more usually resided ; 
which was that of his elder wife Maj^riklondmi, a good-looking woman 
apparently about thirty-five years of age, whom he introduced to me. 
Makds (Makooer), his daughter by Marriklonami, was also introduced : 
she was probably about eighteen. Neither of them, nor several others 
who were present, had ever before, as they told me, seen a white- 
man. They looked at me with the most curious attention ; and to 
make a greater display before the crowd, for the front-court was filled 
with people, Serrakutu requested me to unfold my umbrella and 
allow his wife to stand with me under the shade of it. 
■ While, to the surprise of all, we were thus exhibiting ourselves, 
I felt now and then some person behind me cautiously feeling my 
hair, which being rather unfashionably long, admitted of their doing 
this, as they supposed, without being perceived. 
Serrakutu so much admired the air of importance which the 
