The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

358 THE MALAY AECHIPELAGO. [chap.rest putting in hints and ideas in their own language. Theytold me a long rambling story ; but, partly owing to their imperfectknowledge of Malay, partly througli my ignorance oflocal terms, and partly through the incoherence of theirnarrative, I could not make it out very clearly. It was, however,a tradition, and I was glad to find they had anything ofthe kind. A long time ago, they said, some strangers came toAru, and came here to Wanumbai, and the chief of the Wanumbaipeople did not like them, and wanted them to go away, butthey would not go, and so it came to fighting, and many Arumen were killed, and some, along with the chief, were takenprisoners, and carried away by the strangers. Some of thespeakers, however, said that he was not carried away, but wentaway in his own boat to escape from the foreigners, and wentto the sea and never came back again. But they all believethat the chief and the people that went with him still live insome foreign country ; and if they could but find out where,they would send for them to come back again. Now ha^dngsome vague idea that white men must know every_ countrybeyond the sea, they wanted to know if I had met their peoplein my country or in the sea. They thought they must be there,for tliey could not imagine where else they could be. They hadsought for them everywhere, they said—on the land and in thesea, in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and in thesky, and could not find them ;therefore, they must be in mycountry, and tliey begged me to tell them, fori must surely know,as I came from across the great sea. I tried to explain to themthat their friends could not have reached my country in smallboats ; and that there were plenty of islands like Aru all aboutthe sea, which they would be sure to find. Besides, as it was solong ago, the chief and all the people must be dead. But theyquite lauglied at this idea, and said they were sure they werealive, for they had proof of it. And then they told me that agood many years ago, when the speakers were boys, someWokan men who were out fishing met these lost people in thesea, and spoke to them ;and the chief gave the Wokan men ahundred fathoms of cloth to bring to the men of Wanumbai, toshow that they were alive and would soon come back to them ;but the Wokan men were thieves, and kept the cloth, and theyonly heard of it afterwards ; and when they spoke about it, theWokan men denied it, and pretended they had not received thecloth ;—so they were quite sure their friends were at that timealive and somewhere in the sea. And again, not many yearsago, a report came to them that some Bugis traders had broughtsome children of their lost people ;so they went to Dobbo tosee about it, and the owner of the house, who was now speakingto me, was one who went ; but the Bugis man would not letthem see the children, and threatened to kill them if they cameinto his house. He kept the children shut up in a large box,9,nd when he went away he took them with him. And at the