ke it out very clearly. It was, however, a tradition, and
I was glad to find they had anything of the kind. A long time ago, they
said, some strangers came to Aru, and came here to Wanumbai, and the
chief of the Wanumbai people did not like them, and wanted them to go
away, but they would not go, and so it came to fighting, and many Aru
men were killed, and some, along with the chief, were taken prisoners,
and carried away by the strangers. Some of the speakers, however, said
that he was not carried away, but went away in his own boat to escape
from the foreigners, and went to the sea and never came back again. But
they all believe that the chief and the people that went with him still
live in some foreign country; and if they could but find out where, they
would send for them to come back again. Now having some vague idea that
white men must know every country beyond the sea, they wanted to know
if I had met their people in my country or in the sea. They thought they
must be there, for they could not imagine where else they could be. They
had sought for them everywhere, they said--on the land and in the sea,
in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and in the sky, and could
not find them; therefore, they must be in my country, and they begged
me to tell them, for I must surely know, as I came from across the
great sea. I tried to explain to them that their friends could not have
reached my country in small boats; and that there were plenty of islands
like Aru all about the sea, which they would be sure to find. Besides,
as it was so long ago, the chief and all the people must be dead. But
they quite laughed at this idea, and said they were sure they were
alive, for they had proof of it. And then they told me that a good many
years ago, when the speakers were boys, some Wokan men who were out
fishing met these lost people in the sea, and spoke to them; and the
chief gave the Wokan men a hundred fathoms of cloth to bring to the men
of Wanumbai, to show that they were alive and would soon come back to
them, but the Wokan men were thieves, and kept the cloth, and they only
heard of it afterwards; and when they spoke about it, the Wokan men
denied it, and pretended they had not received the cloth;--so they were
quite sure their friends were at that time alive and somewhere in the
sea. And again, not many years ago, a report came to them that some
Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they
went