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

;XXXI.] ARU ISLANDS.—RESIDET^CE IN THE INTERIOR. 359end of each of these stories, they begged me in an imploringtone to tell them if I knew where their chief and their peoplenow were.By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangerswho had taken away their people. They said they were wonderfullystrong, and each one could kill a great many Aru menand when they were wounded, however badly, they spit uponthe place, and it immediately became well. And they made agreat net of rattans, and entangled their iDrisouers in it, andsunk them in the water ; and the next day, when they pulledthe net up on shore, they made the drowned men come to lifeagain, and carried them away.Much more of the same kind was told me, but in so confusedand rambling a manner that I could make nothing out of it, tillI inquired how long ago it was that all this happened, whenthey told me that after their people were taken away the Bugiscame in their praus to trade in Aru, and to buy trijDang andbirds' nests. It is not impossible that something similar to wjiatthey related to me really happened when the eai'ly Portuguesediscoverers first came to Aru, and has formed the foundation fora continually increasing accumulation of legend and fable. Ihave no doubt that to the next generation, or even before, Imyself shall be transformed into a magician or a demigod, aworker of miracles, and a being of supernatural knowledge.They already believe that all the animals I preserve will cometo life again ; and to their children it will be related that theyactually did so. An unusual spell of fine weather setting in justat my arrival has made them believe I can control the seasons ;and the simple circumstance of my always walking alone in theforest is a wonder and a mystery to them, as well as my askingthem about birds and animals I have not yet seen, and showingan acquaintance with their forms, colours, and habits. Thesefacts a>re brought against me when I disclaim knowledge of whatthey wish me to tell them. " Yoi; must know," say they " ; youknow everything : you make the fine weather for your men toshoot ; and you know all about our birds and our animals as wellas we do ; and you go alone into the foi'est and are not afraid."Therefore every confession of ignorance on my part is thoughtto be a blind, a mere excuse to avoid telling them too much.My very writing materials and books are to them weird things ;and were I to choose to mystify them by a few simple experimentswith lens and magnet, miracles without end wouldin a few years cluster about me ; and future travellers, penetratingto Wanumbai, would hardly believe that a poor Englishnaturalist, who had resided a few months among them, couldhave been the original of the supernatural being to whom somany marvels were attributed.For some days I had noticed a good deal of excitement, andmany strangers came and went armed with sjDears and cutlasses,bows and sliields. I now found there was war near us—two