er, there are any snail shells among a lot, I take them, and
ask for more--a principle of selection so utterly unintelligible to
them, that they give it up in despair, or solve the problem by imputing
hidden medical virtue to those which they see me preserve so carefully.

These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of which Malay is
the chef ingredient, with the exception of a few Chinese. The natives of
Aru, on the other hand, are, Papuans, with black or sooty brown skims,
woolly or frizzly hair, thick-ridged prominent noses, and rather slender
limbs. Most of them wear nothing but a waist-cloth, and a few of them
may be seen all day long wandering about the half-deserted streets of
Dobbo offering their little bit of merchandise for sale.

Living in a trader's house everything is brought to me as well as to
the rest,--bundles of smoked tripang, or "beche de mer," looking like
sausages which have been rolled in mud and then thrown up the chimney;
dried sharks' fins, mother-of-pearl shells, as well as birds of
Paradise, which, however, are so dirty and so badly preserved that I
have as yet found no specimens worth purchasing. When I hardly look at
the articles, and make no offer for them, they seem incredulous, and,
as if fearing they have misunderstood me, again offer them, and declare
what they want in return--knives, or tobacco, or sago, or handkerchiefs.
I then have to endeavour to explain, through any interpreter who may be
at hand, that neither tripang nor pearl oyster shells have any charms
for me, and that I even decline to speculate in tortoiseshell, but that
anything eatable I will buy--fish, or turtle, or vegetables of any sort.
Almost the only food, however, that we can obtain with any regularity,
are fish and cockles of very good quality, and to supply our daily
wants it is absolutely necessary to be always provided with four
articles--tobacco, knives, sago-cakes, and Dutch copper doits--because
when the particular thing asked for is not forthcoming, the fish pass
on to the next house, and we may go that day without a dinner. It
is curious to see the baskets and buckets used here. The cockles are
brought in large volute shells, probably the Cymbium ducale, while
gigantic helmet-shells, a species of Cassis, suspended by a rattan
handle, form the vessels in which fresh water is daily carried past my
door. It is painful to a naturalist to see these splendid shells with
their inner whorls ruthlessly br