carf and
turban, acts as escort through a maze of weedy paths, and across bamboo
bridges in various stages of dilapidation to a couple of dreary
villages. The religious interests of Boeroe are represented by two
ruinous _Messighits_, and a deplorable Dutch conventicle. Some Hindu
element underlies native idiosyncracy, for nearly every forehead bears
a white prayer-mark, but the unchanging conservatism of localities
almost untouched by the lapse of Time, often retains symbolic forms
when their original meaning is entirely forgotten, and the lack of
missionary or educational enterprise among the Dutch exercises a
paralysing effect on the small communities of distant islands. Only a
relative poverty belongs to a clime where the shaking of a sago-palm
provides a large family with rations for three months, but the physical
energies of Boeroe have ebbed to a point where "desire fails," and the
unsatisfactory conditions of life meet for the most part with apathetic
acceptance. The marshy coast abounds with harmless snakes, but these
gruesome inmates of the tropical morass seldom leave their
hiding-places before sunset. The presence of the steamer awakens a
faint simulacrum of life and interest in sleepy Boeroe, and a native
woman, in the rusty black calico wherewith Dutch Calvinism counteracts
the Eastern love of glowing colours, brings a rickety chair from her
dingy hut, and sets the precious possession under a shadowy nutmeg-tree
in the village street. A little crowd assembles, for local excitements
are few, and the Malay phrase-book, an inseparable companion, aids in
carrying on a halting conversation, eked out with signs and facial
contortions. No school is found on Boeroe, and the simple people assert
with submissive sadness that nothing is done for them. The tone of
regret suggests an underlying consciousness of the hopeless ignorance
inevitable under the conditions of their narrow lot. The watery plain,
covered with tangled verdure, extends to the foot of the twin peaks
which merge into a low range of wooded hills, their lower slopes
glistening with the grey-green foliage of the great _kajopoetah_ trees.
The writhing roots of screw-palms rise above the green marshes, and
patches of tobacco alternate with ripening millet, but every crop seems
allowed to degenerate into unpruned disorder, and the feeble attempts
at cultivation soon lapse into the surrounding wilderness. The ruddy
trunk of the candelabra-tree towers above t