Most Of The People Here Had Never Seen A Pin, And The Better
Informed Took A Pride In Teaching Their More Ignorant Companions
The Peculiarities And Uses Of That Strange European Production - A
Needle With A Head, But No Eye!
Even paper, which we throw away
hourly as rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them
picking up little scraps which had been swept out of the house,
and carefully putting them away in their betel-pouch.
Then when I
took my morning coffee and evening tea, how many were the strange
things displayed to them! Teapot, teacups, teaspoons, were all
more or less curious in their eyes; tea, sugar, biscuit, and
butter, were articles of human consumption seen by many of them
for the first time. One asks if that whitish powder is "gula
passir" (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse
lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the
biscuit is considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the
inhabitants of those remote regions are obliged to use in the
absence of the genuine article. My pursuit, were of course
utterly beyond their comprehension. They continually asked me
what white people did with the birds and insects I tools so much
care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they might
perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and files and small ugly
insects put away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and
they were convinced that there must be some medical or magical
use for them which I kept a profound secret.
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