The Natives, When Hard Up For Food, Live Upon A Fleshy
Seaweed, Which They Boil Till It Is Tender.
I tried this also,
but found it too salt and bitter to be endured.
Towards the end of September it became absolutely necessary for
me to return, in order to make our homeward voyage before the end
of the east monsoon. Most of the men who had taken payment from
me had brought the birds they had agreed for. One poor fellow had
been so unfortunate as not to get one, and he very honestly
brought back the axe he had received in advance; another, who had
agreed for six, brought me the fifth two days before I was to
start, and went off immediately to the forest again to get the
other. He did not return, however, and we loaded our boat, and
were just on the point of starting, when he came running down
after us holding up a bird, which he handed to me, saying with
great satisfaction, "Now I owe you nothing." These were
remarkable and quite unexpected instances of honesty among
savages, where it would have been very easy for them to have been
dishonest without fear of detection or punishment.
The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged,
bristling with jagged and honey-combed coralline rocks, and with
curious little chasms and ravines. The paths often passed through
these rocky clefts, which in the depths of the forest were gloomy
and dark in the extreme, and often full of fine-leaved herbaceous
plants and curious blue-foliaged Lycopodiaceae.
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