They Have Little To
Vary The Monotony Of Life, Little That Can Be Called Pleasure,
Except Idleness And Conversation.
And they certainly do talk!
Every evening there is a little Babel around me:
But as I
understand not a word of it, I go on with my book or work
undisturbed. Now and then they scream and shout, or laugh
frantically for variety; and this goes on alternately with
vociferous talking of men, women, and children, till long after I
am in my mosquito curtain and sound asleep.
At this place I obtained some light on the complicated mixture of
races in Aru, which would utterly confound an ethnologist. Many
of the, natives, though equally dark with the others, have little
of the Papuan physiognomy, but have more delicate features of the
European type, with more glossy, curling hair: These at first
quite puzzled me, for they have no more resemblance to Malay than
to Papuan, and the darkness of skin and hair would forbid the
idea of Dutch intermixture. Listening to their conversation,
however, I detected some words that were familiar to me. "Accabó"
was one; and to be sure that it was not an accidental
resemblance, I asked the speaker in Malay what "accabó" meant,
and was told it meant "done or finished," a true Portuguese word,
with its meaning retained. Again, I heard the word "jafui" often
repeated, and could see, without inquiry, that its meaning was
"he's gone," as in Portuguese. "Porco," too, seems a common name,
though the people have no idea of its European meaning.
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