some Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they went
to Dobbo to see about it, and the owner of the house, who was now speaking to
me, was one who went; but the Bugis man would not let them see the children,
and threatened to kill them if they came into his house. He kept the children shut
up in a large box, and when he went away he took them with him. And at the end
of each of these stories, they begged me in an imploring tone to tell them if I
knew where their chief and their people now were.
By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangers who had taken
away their people. They said they were wonderfully strong, and each one could
kill a great many Aru men; and when they were wounded, however badly, they
spit upon the place, and it immediately became well. And they made a great net
of rattans, and entangled their prisoners in it, and sunk them in the water; and the
next day, when they pulled the net up on shore, they made the drowned men
come to life again, and carried them away.
Much more of the same kind was told me, but in so confused and rambling a
manner that I could make nothing out of it, till I inquired how long ago it was
that all this happened, when they told me that after their people were taken away
the Bugis came in their praus to trade in Aru, and to buy tripang and birds' nests.
It is not impossible that something similar to what they related to me really
happened when the early Portuguese discoverers first came to Aru, and has
formed the foundation for a continually increasing accumulation of legend and
fable. I have no doubt that to the next generation, or even before, I myself shall
be transformed into a magician or a demigod, a worker of miracles, and a being
of supernatural knowledge. They already believe that all the animals I preserve
will come to life again; and to their children it will be related that they actually
did so. An unusual spell of fine weather setting in just at my arrival has made
them believe I can control the seasons; and the simple circumstance of my
always walking alone in the forest is a wonder and a mystery to them, as well as
my asking them about birds and animals I have not yet seen, and showing an
acquaintance with their form, colours, and habits. These facts are brought against
me when I disclaim knowledge of what they wish me to tell them. "You must
know," say they; "you know everything: you make the fine weather for your men
to shoot, and you know all about our birds and our animals as well as we do; and
you go alone into the forest and are not afraid." Therefore every confession of
ignorance on my part is thought to be a blind, a mere excuse to avoid telling
them too much. My very writing materials and books are to them weird things;
and were I to choose to mystify them by a few simple experiments with lens and
magnet, miracles without end would in a few years cluster about me; and future