Butul!" (Right, Right.) Then Manuel Would Tell A Long
Story Of One Of His Unsuccessful Hunts - How He Saw Some
Fine
bird and followed it a long way, and then missed it, and again
found it, and shot two or
Three times at it, but could never hit
it, "Ah!" says an old Malay, "its time was not come, and so it
was impossible for you to kill it." A doctrine is this which is
very consoling to the bad marksman, and which quite accounts for
the facts, but which is yet somehow not altogether satisfactory.
It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have the
power to turn themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the
sake of devouring their enemies, and many strange tales are told
of such transformations. I was therefore rather surprised one
evening to hear the following curious fact stated, and as it was
not contradicted by any of the persons present, I am inclined to
accept it provisionally as a contribution to the Natural History
of the island. A Bornean Malay who had been for many years
resident here said to Manuel, "One thing is strange in this
country - the scarcity of ghosts." "How so? "asked Manuel. "Why,
you know," said the Malay, "that in our countries to the
westward, if a man dies or is killed, we dare not pass near the
place at night, for all sorts of noises are heard which show that
ghosts are about. But here there are numbers of men killed, and
their bodies lie unburied in the fields and by the roadside, and
yet you can walk by them at night and never hear or see anything
at all, which is not the case in our country, as you know very
well." "Certainly I do," said Manuel; and so it was settled that
ghosts were very scarce, if not altogether unknown in Lombock. I
would observe, however, that as the evidence is purely negative
we should be wanting in scientific caution if we accepted this
fact as sufficiently well established.
One evening I heard Manuel, Ali, and a Malay man whispering
earnestly together outside the door, and could distinguish
various allusions to "krisses," throat-cutting, heads, etc. etc.
At length Manuel came in, looking very solemn and frightened, and
said to me in English, "Sir - must take care, - no safe here; - want
cut throat." On further inquiry, I found that the Malay had been
telling them that the Rajah had just sent down an order to the
village, that they were to get a certain number of heads for an
offering in the temples to secure a good crop of rice. Two or
three other Malays and Bugis, as well as the Amboyna man in whose
house we lived, confirmed this account, and declared that it was
a regular thing every year, and that it was necessary to keep a
good watch and never go out alone. I laughed at the whole thing,
and tried to persuade them that it was a mere tale, but to no
effect. They were all firmly persuaded that their lives were in
danger. Manuel would not go out shooting alone, and I was obliged
to accompany him every morning, but I soon gave him the slip in
the jungle. Ali was afraid to go and look for firewood without a
companion, and would not even fetch water from the well a few
yards behind the house unless armed with an enormous spear. I was
quite sure all the time that no such order had been sent or
received, and that we were in perfect safety. This was well shown
shortly afterwards, when an American sailor ran away from his
ship on the east side of the island, and made his way on foot and
unarmed across to Ampanam, having met with the greatest
hospitality on the whole route. Nowhere would the smallest
payment be taken for the food and lodging which were willingly
furbished him. On pointing out this fact to Manuel, he replied,
"He one bad man, - run away from his ship - no one can believe word
he say;" and so I was obliged to leave him in the uncomfortable
persuasion that he might any day have his throat cut.
A circumstance occurred here which appeared to throw some light
on the cause of the tremendous surf at Ampanam. One evening I
heard a strange rumbling noise, and at the same time the house
shook slightly. Thinking it might be thunder, I asked, "What is
that?" "It is an earthquake," answered Inchi Daud, my host; and
he then told me that slight shocks were occasionally felt there,
but he had never known them to be severe. This happened on the day of
the last quarter of the moon, and consequently when tides were low and
the surf usually at its weakest. On inquiry afterwards at Ampanam, I
found that no earthquake had been noticed, but that on one night there
had been a very heavy surf, which shook the house, and the next day
there was a very high tide, the water having flooded Mr. Carter's
premises, higher than he had ever known it before. These unusual
tides occur every now and then, and are not thought much of; but
by careful inquiry I ascertained that the surf had occurred on
the very night I had felt the earthquake at Labuan Tring, nearly
twenty miles off. This would seem to indicate, that although the
ordinary heavy surf may be due to the swell of the great Southern
Ocean confined in a narrow channel, combined with a peculiar form
of bottom near the shore, yet the sudden heavy surfs and high tides
that occur occasionally in perfectly calm weather, may be due to
slight upheavals of the ocean-bed in this eminently volcanic region.
CHAPTER XI.
LOMBOCK: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE.
HAVING made a very fine and interesting collection of the birds
of Labuan Tring, I took leave of my kind host, Inchi Daud, and
returned to Ampanam to await an opportunity to reach Macassar.
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