“Well, no, I don’t want to go in,” said Bob, “but the old fellow will be offended if we do not; and we want to make friends, not enemies.”
Ali nodded, and they sat down in the bamboo-floored hut, through whose open door they saw their host busy sending a Malay boy up one of his cocoa-nut trees, the boy rapidly ascending the lofty palm by means of nicks already cut in the tree for the purpose.
Three great nuts, in their husk-like envelopes, fell directly with a thud, and these the friendly Malay opened and placed before his visitors.
“This is very different to the cocoa-nut we boys used to buy at school,” said Bob, as he revelled in the delicious sub-acid cream of the nut, and then partook of rice, with a kind of sugary confection which was very popular amongst the people.
Homely as the outside of the huts had appeared, both the lads could not help noticing how similar the habits of these simple Malays in this out-of-the-way part of the world were to those of people at home.
For instance, beneath the eaves hung a couple of cages, neatly made of bamboo, in one of which was a pair of the little lovebird paroquets side by side upon a perch; and in the other a minah, a starling-like bird, that kept leaping from perch to perch, and repeating with a very clear enunciation several Malay words.
Thoroughly rested at last, the little party set off again—their host refusing all compensation, and once more they plunged into the thickest of the jungle, though very little success attended their guns.
This was hardly noticed, though, for there was always something fresh to see—huge butterflies of wondrous colours flitting through the more open glades, strange vegetable forms, beautifully graceful bamboos, clustering in the moister parts, where some stream ran unseen amidst the dense undergrowth, while at last they reached a river of such surpassing beauty, with its overhanging ferns, in the deep ravine in which it ran, that both the strangers paused to admire, while the Malays looked on with good-humoured wonder at their enthusiasm.
But very little of the sluggish stream was seen for the dense emerald growth, and the water itself was more like a chain of pools, which seemed to be likely haunts of fish; and forgetting heat and weariness, both the young Englishmen began to divide the reeds and long grass and ferns with the barrels of their guns, so as to peer down into the water.
Ali, evidently to please them, displayed quite as much interest as they; while the two Malays squatted down, and taking out sirih leaves, spread upon them a little lime paste from a box, rolled in them a scrap of betel-nut, and began to indulge in a quiet chew.