Among The Things I Had Sent
For Was A Box Of Arrack, And I Was Now Of Course Besieged With
Requests For A Little Drop.
I gave them a flask (about two
bottles, which was very soon finished, and I was assured that
there were many present who had not had a taste.
As I feared my
box would very soon be emptied if I supplied all their demands, I
told them I had given them one, but the second they must pay for,
and that afterwards I must have a Paradise bird for each flask.
They immediately sent round to all the neighbouring houses, and
mustered up a rupee in Dutch copper money, got their second
flask, and drunk it as quickly as the first, and were then very
talkative, but less noisy and importunate than I had expected.
Two or three of them got round me and begged me for the twentieth
time to tell them the name of my country. Then, as they could not
pronounce it satisfactorily, they insisted that I was deceiving
them, and that it was a name of my own invention. One funny old
man, who bore a ludicrous resemblance, to a friend of mine at
home, was almost indignant. "Ung-lung! "said he, "who ever heard
of such a name? - ang lang - anger-lung - that can't be the name of
your country; you are playing with us." Then he tried to give a
convincing illustration. "My country is Wanumbai - anybody can say
Wanumbai. I'm an ` orang-Wanumbai; but, N-glung! who ever heard
of such a name? Do tell us the real name of your country, and
then when you are gone we shall know how to talk about you." To
this luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose nothing
but assertion, and the whole party remained firmly convinced that
I was for some reason or other deceiving them. They then attacked
me on another point - what all the animals and birds and insects
and shells were preserved so carefully for. They had often asked
me this before, and I had tried to explain to them that they
would be stuffed, and made to look as if alive, and people in my
country would go to look at them. But this was not satisfying; in
my country there must be many better things to look at, and they
could not believe I would take so much trouble with their birds
and beasts just for people to look at. They did not want to look
at them; and we, who made calico and glass and knives, and all
sorts of wonderful things, could not want things from Aru to look
at. They had evidently been thinking about it, and had at length
got what seemed a very satisfactory theory; for the same old man
said to me, in a low, mysterious voice, "What becomes of them
when you go on to the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in
boxes," said I "What did you think became of them?" "They all
come to life again, don't they?" said he; and though I tried to
joke it off, and said if they did we should have plenty to eat at
sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating, with an air of
deep conviction, "Yes, they all come to life again, that's what
they do - they all come to life again."
After a little while, and a good deal of talking among
themselves, he began again - "I know all about it - oh yes!
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