AN EMBASSY, 
151 
holder that they should together visit that vil- 
lage to try what could be done by personal 
influence to establish friendly relations. A chief 
from Sera, an island on the west coast, who 
speaks Malay, being on a visit to our village, 
agreed to accompany and promised to be hos- 
tage if they tried to detain H. I was miserably 
anxious while this was being proposed, and was 
cowardly enough to be glad when the post- 
holder refused to risk his life in such an attempt, 
excusing himself on the plea that our neighbours 
of the next village, who had suffered badly in 
the last fray, would oppose a peace. H., how- 
ever, determined to sound them, so anxious was 
he to have the range of the island, and be able 
to assure our men, who would hardly go to the 
well for water, and refused to proceed any dis- 
tance into the forests to the hunt, that they 
might work without fear. How he fared, and 
how nearly I was left in the first fortnight of our 
stay to face the trials of such a life alone, I let 
H. tell in his own words 
“As, like most of the Tenimberese villages, 
Waitidal was situated on a flat space of some 
extent on the summit of a bluff which stood a 
good way back from shore, we had, in order to 
reach the gateway, to ascend the perpendicular 
