After A Windy Night, That Nasty-Looking Chinese
Delicacy The Sea-Slug Was Sometimes Thrown Up On The Beach, Which
Was at such times thickly strewn with some of the most beautiful
shells that adorn our cabinets, along with fragments
And masses
of coral and strange sponges, of which I picked up more than
twenty different sorts. In many cases sponge and coral are so
much alike that it is only on touching them that they can be
distinguished. Quantities of seaweed, too, are thrown up; but
strange as it may seem, these are far less beautiful and less
varied than may be found on any favourable part of our own
coasts.
The natives here, even those who seem to be of pare Papuan race,
were much more reserved and taciturn than those of Ke. This is
probably because I only saw them as yet among strangers and in
small parties, One must see the savage at home to know what he
really is. Even here, however, the Papuan character sometimes
breaks out. Little boys sing cheerfully as they walk along, or
talk aloud to themselves (quite a negro characteristic); and try
all they can, the men cannot conceal their emotions in the true
Malay fashion. A number of them were one day in my house, and
having a fancy to try what sort of eating tripang would be, I
bought a couple, paying for them with such an extravagant
quantity of tobacco that the seller saw I was a green customer.
He could not, however, conceal his delight, but as he smelt the
fragrant weed, and exhibited the large handful to his companions,
he grinned and twisted and gave silent chuckles in a most
expressive pantomime.
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