as crowded and as busy as beehives. Heaps of tripang were finally dried and
packed up in sacks; mother-of-pearl shell, tied up with rattans into convenient
bundles, was all day long being carried to the beach to be loaded; water-casks
were filled, and cloths and mat-sails mended and strengthened for the run home
before the strong east wind. Almost every day groups of natives arrived from the
most distant parts of the islands, with cargoes of bananas and sugar-cane to
exchange for tobacco, sago, bread, and other luxuries, before the general
departure. The Chinamen killed their fat pig and made their parting feast, and
kindly sent me some pork, and a basin of birds' nest stew, which had very little
more taste than a dish of vermicelli. My boy Ali returned from Wanumbai,
where I had sent him alone for a fortnight to buy Paradise birds and prepare the
skins; he brought me sixteen glorious specimens, and had he not been very ill
with fever and ague might have obtained twice the number. He had lived with
the people whose house I had occupied, and it is a proof of their goodness, if
fairly treated, that although he took with him a quantity of silver dollars to pay
for the birds they caught, no attempt was made to rob him, which might have
been done with the most perfect impunity. He was kindly treated when ill, and
was brought back to me with the balance of the dollars he had not spent.
The Wanumbai people, like almost all the inhabitants of the Aru Islands, are
perfect savages, and I saw no signs of any religion. There are, however, three or
four villages on the coast where schoolmasters from Amboyna reside, and the
people are nominally Christians, and are to some extent educated and civilized. I
could not get much real knowledge of the customs of the Aru people during the
short time I was among them, but they have evidently been considerably
influenced by their long association with Mahometan traders. They often bury
their dead, although the national custom is to expose the body an a raised stage
till it decomposes. Though there is no limit to the number of wives a man may
have, they seldom exceed one or two. A wife is regularly purchased from the
parents, the price being a large assortment of articles, always including gongs,
crockery, and cloth. They told me that some of the tribes kill the old men and
women when they can no longer work, but I saw many very old and decrepid
people, who seemed pretty well attended to. No doubt all who have much
intercourse with the Bugis and Ceramese traders gradually lose many of their
native customs, especially as these people often settle in their villages and marry
native women.
The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were
fifteen large praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats from
Ceram, Goram, and Ke. The Macassar cargoes are worth about £1,000. each, and