"Lenco" for handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the exclusion of the proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected more rapid changes in the countries they conquered than any other nations of modern times, resembling the Romans in their power of impressing their own language, religion, and manners on rode and barbarous tribes.
The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays is exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the forest, an old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood very quiet till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed a hearty roar of laughter.
Every one will recognise this as a true negro trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment what Iwas doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh, never heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom, however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable than the most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here were not so much frightened at strangers, or made to keep themselves so much secluded as among the Malay races; the children were more merry and had the "nigger grin," while the noisy confusion of tongues among the men, and their excitement on very ordinary occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity and reserve of the Malay.
The language of the Ke people consists of words of one, two, or three syllables in about equal proportions, and has many aspirated and a few guttural sounds. The different villages have slight differences of dialect, but they are mutually intelligible, and, except in words that have evidently been introduced during a long-continued commercial intercourse, seem to have no affinity whatever with the Malay languages.
Jan. 6th.-The small boats being finished, we sailed for Aru at 4P.M., and as we left the shores of Ke had a line view of its rugged and mountainous character; ranges of hills, three or four thousand feet high, stretching southwards as far as the eye could reach, everywhere covered with a lofty, dense, and unbroken forest. We had very light winds, and it therefore took us thirty hours to make the passage of sixty miles to the low, or flat, but equally forest-covered Aru Islands, where we anchored in the harbour of Dobbo at nine in the evening of the next day.
My first voyage in a prau being thus satisfactorily terminated, Imust, before taking leave of it for some months, bear testimony to the merits of the queer old-world vessel. Setting aside all ideas of danger, which is probably, after all, not more than in any other craft, I must declare that I have never, either before or since, made a twenty days' voyage so pleasantly, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, with so little discomfort. This Iattribute chiefly to having my small cabin on deck, and entirely to myself, to having my own servants to wait upon me, and to the absence of all those marine-store smells of paint, pitch, tallow, and new cordage, which are to me insupportable. Something is also to be put down to freedom from all restraint of dress, hours of meals, &c., and to the civility and obliging disposition of the captain. I had agreed to have my meals with him, but whenever Iwished it I had them in my own berth, and at what hours I felt inclined. The crew were all civil and good-tempered, and with very little discipline everything went on smoothly, and the vessel was kept very clean and in pretty good order, so that on the whole I was much delighted with the trip, and was inclined to rate the luxuries of the semi-barbarous prau as surpassing those of the most magnificent screw-steamer, that highest result of our civilisation.