stroke till I had taken it out of the net and was gazing, lost in admiration, at the
velvet black and brilliant green of its wings, seven inches across, its bolder body,
and crimson breast. It is true I had seen similar insects in cabinets at home, but it
is quite another thing to capture such oneself-to feel it struggling between one's
fingers, and to gaze upon its fresh and living beauty, a bright gem shirring out
amid the silent gloom of a dark and tangled forest. The village of Dobbo held
that evening at least one contented man.
Jan. 26th.—Having now been here a fortnight, I began to understand a little of
the place and its peculiarities. Praus continually arrived, and the merchant
population increased almost daily. Every two or three days a fresh house was
opened, and the necessary repairs made. In every direction men were bringing in
poles, bamboos, rattans, and the leaves of the nipa palm to construct or repair the
walls, thatch, doors, and shutters of their houses, which they do with great
celerity. Some of the arrivals were Macassar men or Bugis, but more from the
small island of Goram, at the east end of Ceram, whose inhabitants are the petty
traders of the far East. Then the natives of Aru come in from the other side of the
islands (called here "blakang tana," or "back of the country") with the produce
they have collected during the preceding six months, and which they now sell to
the traders, to some of whom they are most likely in debt.
Almost all, or I may safely say all, the new arrivals pay me a visit, to see with
their own eyes the unheard-of phenomenon of a person come to stay at Dobbo
who does not trade! They have their own ideas of the uses that may possibly be
made of stuffed birds, beetles, and shells which are not the right shells—that is,
"mother-of-pearl." They every day bring me dead and broken shells, such as I
can pick up by hundreds on the beach, and seem quite puzzled and distressed
when I decline them. If, however, there are any snail shells among a lot, I take
them, and ask for more—a principle of selection so utterly unintelligible to them,
that they give it up in despair, or solve the problem by imputing hidden medical
virtue to those which they see me preserve so carefully.
These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of which Malay is the
chef ingredient, with the exception of a few Chinese. The natives of Aru, on the
other hand, are, Papuans, with black or sooty brown skims, woolly or frizzly
hair, thick-ridged prominent noses, and rather slender limbs. Most of them wear
nothing but a waist-cloth, and a few of them may be seen all day long wandering
about the half-deserted streets of Dobbo offering their little bit of merchandise
for sale.
Living in a trader's house everything is brought to me as well as to the rest,—
bundles of smoked tripang, or "beche de mer," looking like sausages which have