p. [91].
"Povera e nuda vai, filosofia",[6] I muttered to myself, admiring that old man, ignorant and bare, who in the rough, broken phrases of his poor language solved with the greatest simplicity questions of civil rights which a University professor would have found complicated and even difficult. I continued however:
"But then if nobody came to you, treading your paths; if nobody cultivated some strips of your forest, how would you obtain calico, and tobacco and rice?".
With a shake of his head my humble host hastened to answer:
"Cannot man live without these trifles? Does not the forest supply us with flesh, fish, and fowl? Does it not produce, for our use, roots, bulbs, truffles, mushrooms, edible leaves and exquisite fruit? Do not its trees provide us with shelter and their bark with a covering for our bodies, when it is necessary? What more could one desire?".
I was nonplused! But noticing that my new friend was in the vein to chat, a fact which I inwardly attributed to the effects of that same tobacco, whose necessity he had just denied, but which he was smoking with evident pleasure, I turned the conversation by asking why his people were not be found in other parts of the Peninsula?
"We love our forest and our liberty too well ever to leave these confines of our own accord" he replied placidly and in tones of conviction, "and when, as sometimes happened in the past, our people were forced to follow and serve their conquerors they brought little or no profit to their masters because if they found a chance of escaping back to their kindred they did so, and if not, in a short time they died of broken hearts. As for our children, we would rather kill them ourselves than let them go into the hands of our neighbours. Now that we are protected by the orang putei" (he meant the British Government) "we and our families live in more peace than before".
As though overcome by painful memories, he became silent and sad. After a minute he went on in a dull voice, seeming to speak to himself: "Once upon a time these parts were not so deserted, and populous, prosperous villages were scattered over the forest. But our tranquillity and well-being excited the envy of other tribes who wanted to subject us to them and to make us work like slaves, so they came against us armed, and pillaged, burnt and destroyed everything belonging to us. We were dispersed and compelled to live in isolated huts erected in the most inaccessible places in order not to attract the attention of other men".
He paused again and then added:
"We have nothing to lose now except our freedom which is more precious to us than life itself, and for this we are ready to fight to the very last even if our bodies are left on the ground for beasts and birds to feed upon".