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

400 THE :\IALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.Immediately on our arrival at Muka, I engaged a small boatand three natives to go in search of my lost men, and sent oneof my own men with them to make sur-e of their going to theright island. In ten days they returned, but to my great regretand disapiDointment, without the men. The weather had beenvery bad, and though they had reached an island within sight ofthat 'in which the men were, they could get no further. Theyhad w^aited there six days for better weather, and then, havingno more provisions, and the man I had sent with them beingvery ill and not expected to live, they returned. As they nowknew the island I was determined they should make anothertrial and (by a liberal payment of knives, handkerchiefs, andtobacco, with plentj^ of provisions) persuaded them to startback immediately, and make another attempt. They did notreturn again till the 29th of July, having stayed a few days attheir own village of Bessir on the Avay ; but this time they hadsucceeded and brought with them my two lost men, in tolerablehealth, though thin and weak. They had lived exactly a monthon the island ; had found water, and had subsisted on the rootsand tender flower-stalks of a species of Bromelia, on shell-fish,and on a few turtles' eggs. Ha%T.ng swum to the island, theyhad only a pair of trousers and a shirt between them, but hadmade a hut of palm-leaves, and had altogether got on very well.They saw that I waited for them three days at the oppositeisland, but had been afraid to cross, lest the current should havecarried them out to sea, wdien they would have been ine^'itablylost. They had felt sure I would send for them on the firstopportunity, and appeared more grateful than natives usuallyare for my having done so ; wliile I felt much relieved that myvoyage, though sufficiently unfortunate, had not involved lossof life.CHAPTER XXXVI.WAIGIOU.(JULY TO SEPTEMBER 1860.)The village of Muka, on the south coast of Waigiou, consistsof a number of poor huts, partly in the water and partly onshore, and scattered irregularly over a space of al;)out half amile in a shallow bay. Around it are a few cultivated patches,and a good deal of second-growth woody vegetation ; while behind,at tiie distance of about lialf a mile, rises the virgin forest,througli which are a few paths to some houses and plantationsa mile or two inland. The country round is rather flat, and inplaces swampy, and there are one or two small streams wliichrun behind the village into the sea below it. Finding that no