w, a buffalo, or an antelope. It
was of the size of a very small Highland cow, and had long straight
horns, which were ringed at the base, and sloped backwards over the
neck.

The strangest animal he showed us was called the Babirusa, which
resembled in general appearance a pig, but it had long and slender legs,
and tusks curved upwards so as to look like horns. Those of the lower
jaw were long and sharp, but the upper ones grew upwards out of bony
sockets through the skin on each side of the snout, curving backwards to
near the eyes, and were ten inches long. Our friend told us that it is
found over the whole island. He supposed the object of the curling
tusks was to preserve the eyes of the animal when searching for the
fallen fruits on which it lives among the tangled thickets of spring
plants. Though the female does not possess them, perhaps the male
gallantly clears the way for her so as to render them unnecessary.
However, I must not stop to give a longer description of this
interesting place, or many others we saw; I indeed made only two trips
ashore, as I had to be on board attending to my duty.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Once more the anchor was weighed, and we were about to stand out of the
picturesque bay of Menado the moment a boat, in which Mr Blyth had gone
on shore to bring off a supply of fresh provisions, returned.

Ned, who had been one of the crew, as soon as the sails were set, came
up to me. "I've just heard something, sir, which may or may not be of
importance," he said. "I was talking to one of the men we brought off
from Sanguir, when he confessed to me that he had been on board the
prahu which took me off the shore where we were wrecked. I think he
spoke the truth when he told me how I kicked when the pirates made me
take an oar and pull with the black fellows they had, I suppose, made
slaves of. I asked him if he could tell me where the place was. He
answered that it was on the shores of a large island--a very large one,
I should think, and away somewhere to the eastward, for he pointed in
that direction, though I could not make out exactly how far off it was."

I was deeply interested, and told him that he ought to have brought the
man on board that we might have examined him more particularly with the
aid of Bell and Kalong.

"He would have been afraid to trust himself, sir," answered Ned; "as he
owned that he had been a pirate, he was afraid that the captain or the
Dutch might puni