Far Some Days I Had Noticed A Good Deal Of Excitement, And Many
Strangers Came And Went Armed With Spears And Cutlasses, Bows And
Shields.
I now found there was war near us - two neighbouring
villages having a quarrel about some matter of local politics
that I could not understand.
They told me it was quite a common
thing, and that they are rarely without fighting somewhere near.
Individual quarrels are taken up by villages and tribes, and the
nonpayment of the stipulated price for a wife is one of the most
frequent causes of bitterness and bloodshed. One of the war
shields was brought me to look at. It was made of rattans and
covered with cotton twist, so as to be both light, strong, and
very tough. I should think it would resist any ordinary bullet.
Abort the middle there was au arm-hole with a shutter or flap
over it. This enables the arm to be put through and the bow
drawn, while the body and face, up to the eyes, remain protected,
which cannot be done if the shield is carried on the arm by loops
attached at the back in the ordinary way. A few of the young men
from our house went to help their friends, but I could not bear
that any of them were hurt, or that there was much hard fighting.
May 8th.-I had now been six weeks at Wanumbai, but for more than
half the time was laid up in the house with ulcerated feet. My
stores being nearly exhausted, and my bird and insect boxes full,
and having no immediate prospect of getting the use of my legs
again, I determined on returning to Dobbo. Birds had lately
become rather scarce, and the Paradise birds had not yet become
as plentiful as the natives assured me they would be in another
month. The Wanumbai people seemed very sorry at my departure; and
well they might be, for the shells and insects they picked up on
the way to and from their plantations, and the birds the little
boys shot with their bows and arrows, kept them all well supplied
with tobacco and gambir, besides enabling them to accumulate a
stock of beads and coppers for future expenses. The owner of the
house was supplied gratis with a little rice, fish, or salt,
whenever he asked for it, which I must say was not very often. On
parting, I distributed among them my remnant stock of salt and
tobacco, and gave my host a flask of arrack, and believe that on
the whole my stay with these simple and good-natured people was
productive of pleasure and profit to both parties. I fully
intended to come back; and had I known that circumstances would
have prevented my doing so, shoed have felt some sorrow in
leaving a place where I had first seen so many rare and beautiful
living things, and bad so fully enjoyed the pleasure which fills
the heart of the naturalist when he is so fortunate as to
discover a district hitherto unexplored, and where every day
brings forth new and unexpected treasures. We loaded our boat in
the afternoon, and, starting before daybreak, by the help of a
fair wind reached Dobbo late the same evening.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE ARU ISLANDS. - SECOND RESIDENCE AT DOBBO.
(MAY AND JUNE 1857.)
DOBBO was full to overflowing, and I was obliged to occupy the
court-house where the Commissioners hold their sittings. They had
now left the island, and I found the situation agreeable, as it
was at the end of the village, with a view down the principal
street. It was a mere shed, but half of it had a roughly boarded
floor, and by putting up a partition and opening a window I made
it a very pleasant abode. In one of the boxes I had left in
charge of Herr Warzbergen, a colony of small ants had settled and
deposited millions of eggs. It was luckily a fine hot day, and by
carrying the box some distance from the house, and placing every
article in the sunshine for an hour or two, I got rid of them
without damage, as they were fortunately a harmless species.
Dobbo now presented an animated appearance. Five or six new
houses had been added to the street; the praus were all brought
round to the western side of the point, where they were hauled up
on the beach, and were being caulked and covered with a thick
white lime-plaster for the homeward voyage, making them the
brightest and cleanest looking things in the place. Most of the
small boats had returned from the "blakang-tana "(back country),
as the side of the islands towards New Guinea is called. Piles of
firewood were being heaped up behind the houses; sail-makers and
carpenters were busy at work; mother-of-pearl shell was being
tied up in bundles, and the black and ugly smoked tripang was
having a last exposure to the sun before loading. The spare
portion of the crews were employed cutting and squaring timber,
and boats from Ceram and Goram were constantly unloading their
cargoes of sago-cake for the traders' homeward voyage. The fowls,
ducks, and goats all looked fat and thriving on the refuse food
of a dense population, and the Chinamen's pigs were in a state of
obesity that foreboded early death. Parrots and Tories and
cockatoos, of a dozen different binds, were suspended on bamboo
perches at the doors of the houses, with metallic green or white
fruit-pigeons which cooed musically at noon and eventide. Young
cassowaries, strangely striped with black and brown, wandered
about the houses or gambolled with the playfulness of kittens in
the hot sunshine, with sometimes a pretty little kangaroo, caught
in the Aru forests, but already tame and graceful as a petted
fawn.
Of an evening there were more signs of life than at the time of
my former residence.
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