other vermin, calling for special cautions and constant supervision, which under
the circumstances above described were impossible.
My readers may now partially understand why a travelling naturalist of
limited means, like myself, does so much less than is expected or than he would
himself wish to do. It would be interesting to preserve skeletons of many birds
and animals, reptiles and fishes in spirits, skins of the larger animals, remarkable
fruits and woods and the most curious articles of manufacture and commerce;
but it will be seen that under the circumstances I have just described, it would
have been impossible to add these to the collections which were my own more
especial favourites. When travelling by boat the difficulties are as great or
greater, and they are not diminished when the journey is by land. It was
absolutely necessary therefore to limit my collections to certain groups to which
I could devote constant personal attention, and thus secure from destruction or
decay what had been often obtained by much labour and pains.
While Manuel sat skinning his birds of an afternoon, generally surrounded by
a little crowd of Malays and Sassaks (as the indigenes of Lombock are termed),
he often held forth to them with the air of a teacher, and was listened to with
profound attention. He was very fond of discoursing on the "special
providences" of which he believed he was daily the subject. "Allah has been
merciful today," he would say—for although a Christian he adopted the
Mahometan mode of speech—"and has given us some very fine birds; we can do
nothing without him." Then one of the Malays would reply, "To be sure, birds
are like mankind; they have their appointed time to die; when that time comes
nothing can save them, and if it has not come you cannot kill them." A murmur
of assent follow, until sentiments and cries of "Butul! Butul!" (Right, right.)
Then Manuel would tell a long story of one of his unsuccessful hunts—how he
saw some fine bird and followed it a long way, and then missed it, and again
found it, and shot two or three times at it, but could never hit it, "Ah!" says an
old Malay, "its time was not come, and so it was impossible for you to kill it." A
doctrine is this which is very consoling to the bad marksman, and which quite
accounts for the facts, but which is yet somehow not altogether satisfactory.
It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have the power to turn
themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the sake of devouring their
enemies, and many strange tales are told of such transformations. I was therefore
rather surprised one evening to hear the following curious fact stated, and as it
was not contradicted by any of the persons present, I am inclined to accept it
provisionally as a contribution to the Natural History of the island. A Bornean
Malay who had been for many years resident here said to Manuel, "One thing is