Chapter Eighteen.
I find the Black Ways Strange.
We were not very long in getting to the harbour, a snug landlocked cove where the great prahu in which we had come could lie well protected from the rollers. Our passage in was made easy, as the great sails were lowered by the men in a couple of canoes, who paddled out, shouting and singing, and splashing the water; and then, after ropes had been made fast to their sterns, they paddled away again, drawing us steadily inshore.
I began to wonder directly whether these would be anything like the savages who came to Robinson Crusoe’s island; but a moment’s reflection told me that Juan Fernandez was supposed to be his island, and that was on the other side of the world.
“Well, Nat, what do you think of our visitors?” said my uncle, as I leaned over the prow of our vessel and watched the men in the canoe.
“I was thinking, uncle, that it can’t cost them much for clothes,” I said, laughing.
“No, Nat,” he replied, joining in my mirth; “but do you see how different they are to our sailors here?”
“Yes, they are blacker, uncle, and have different shaped noses, and their hair curls instead of being straight.”
“Good!” he exclaimed; “that’s the way to become a naturalist. Observe everything. You are quite right; we are going to leave one race of men now, Nat, the Malays, to travel amongst the Papuans, a people who are wonderfully different in every way.”