do talk! Every evening there is a little Babel around me: but as I understand not a
word of it, I go on with my book or work undisturbed. Now and then they
scream and shout, or laugh frantically for variety; and this goes on alternately
with vociferous talking of men, women, and children, till long after I am in my
mosquito curtain and sound asleep.
At this place I obtained some light on the complicated mixture of races in Aru,
which would utterly confound an ethnologist. Many of the natives, though
equally dark with the others, have little of the Papuan physiognomy, but have
more delicate features of the European type, with more glossy, curling hair:
These at first quite puzzled me, for they have no more resemblance to Malay
than to Papuan, and the darkness of skin and hair would forbid the idea of Dutch
intermixture. Listening to their conversation, however, I detected some words
that were familiar to me. "Accabó" was one; and to be sure that it was not an
accidental resemblance, I asked the speaker in Malay what "accabó" meant, and
was told it meant "done or finished," a true Portuguese word, with its meaning
retained. Again, I heard the word "jafui" often repeated, and could see, without
inquiry, that its meaning was "he's gone," as in Portuguese. "Porco," too, seems a
common name, though the people have no idea of its European meaning. This
cleared up the difficulty. I at once understood that some early Portuguese traders
had penetrated to these islands, and mixed with the natives, influencing their
language, and leaving in their descendants for many generations the visible
characteristics of their race. If to this we add the occasional mixture of Malay,
Dutch, and Chinese with the indigenous Papuans, we have no reason to wonder
at the curious varieties of form and feature occasionally to be met with in Aru. In
this very house there was a Macassar man, with an Aru wife and a family of
mixed children. In Dobbo I saw a Javanese and an Amboyna man, each with an
Aru wife and family; and as this kind of mixture has been going on for at least
three hundred years, and probably much longer, it has produced a decided effect
on the physical characteristics of a considerable portion of the population of the
islands, more especially in Dobbo and the parts nearest to it.
March 28th.—The "Orang-kaya" being very ill with fever had begged to go
home, and had arranged with one of the men of the house to go on with me as
his substitute. Now that I wanted to move, the bugbear of the pirates was brought
up, and it was pronounced unsafe to go further than the next small river. This
world not suit me, as I had determined to traverse the channel called Watelai to
the "blakang-tana;" but my guide was firm in his dread of pirates, of which I
knew there was now no danger, as several vessels had gone in search of them, as
well as a Dutch gunboat which had arrived since I left Dobbo. I had, fortunately,