I felt a little nervous at first on going ashore, for we were surrounded by quite a crowd of fierce-looking blacks, all chattering, gesticulating, and pressing on us in their eagerness to get close up, but I soon found that it was only excitement and delight at seeing us among them, and that they wanted to barter ornaments and shells, for tobacco and sugar, or knives.
They were just like children, and though, had they been so disposed, they could have overpowered us and taken possession of everything we possessed in an instant, nothing seemed farther from their thoughts.
The captain of the prahu came ashore with us, and we explained to one of the chief men that we wanted to have a hut on shore and stay with them for a time, and his countenance expanded into a broad grin of pleasure, one which seemed to increase as we both shook hands with him, and uncle gave him a handful of tobacco, and I a small common one-bladed knife.
He looked at both in turn, and then seemed puzzled as to what he ought to give us in exchange, while, when he was made to understand that they were presents and nothing was wanted back, he attached himself to us, and very soon we found ourselves the possessors of a very dark, little well-thatched hut, with no windows, and nothing to close the door, but it answered our purpose in giving us shelter, and to it the chief willingly helped with a couple of dozen of his men, in getting our chests, boxes, and stores.
The next thing was to find a place for our boat, which was towed ashore behind a canoe; and on the chief understanding the want, he very soon pointed out to us a shady nook where it could be run ashore and beached in safety, away from the waves, he helping himself to make the rope fast to a large cocoa-nut tree.
This done, the chief walked, or rather strutted, round our boat, and looked under it, over it, and about it in all directions, making grimaces expressive of his disgust, and ending by kicking its sides and making derisive gestures, to show that he thought it a very poor boat indeed.
The prahu was going away the next day, so a busy scene of trading went on till night, when the captain sought us out, and in his broken English enquired very earnestly whether we had landed everything, including sundry stores which my Uncle Dick had purchased of the Scotch merchants at Singapore, they being able to tell him what was most likely to find favour amongst the savages with whom we should have to deal.
In answer to a question, the Malay captain assured us that we might feel quite safe amongst the Ké islanders, and also with those in the Aru and neighbouring isles; but he said that he would not trust the men of New Guinea, unless it was in a place where they had never seen white men before.
He promised to be on the look-out for us as he was trading to and fro during the next year or two, for my uncle assured him that we should be about that time among the islands, and with the promise to meet us here in a year’s time if we did not meet before, and to come from Singapore provided with plenty of powder and shot for our use, and ready to take back any cases of specimens we might have ready, he parted from us with the grave courtesy of a Mohammedan gentleman. The next time we saw him was in the morning, as he waved his scarlet headkerchief to us from the deck of his prahu, which was floating away on the current, there being barely wind enough to fill the sails.
Some very beautifully shaped canoes filled with the naked black islanders paddled out for some little distance beside the prahu, singing and shouting, and splashing the sea into foam with their paddles, making it sparkle like diamonds in the glorious morning sunshine.