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When Dr. Selberg left Java, a Dutch pilot steered the ship as far as Passaruang. The man appeared very melancholy, and, on being asked the of his sadness, said that, during his previous trip, his wife had gambled all his savings. He had forgotten the key in his money-box, and, on going home, the last doit had disappeared. Dr.
This assertion is confirmed by many examples. Dr. Selberg conjectures various reasons for this eccentricity or epicurism, whichever it may be termed, on the part of the tiger, and amongst other hypotheses, suggests that the animal may be partial to the hogoo of the Javans, who anoint their yellow carcases with cocoa-nut oil.
The heat of those latitudes rendering rowing too violent an exertion for European sailors, four Malays were taken on board the Betsey and Sara, to maintain the communication with shore. It was with a joyful heart that Dr. Selberg, weary of his protracted voyage, sprang into a boat, and was landed in the port of Batavia.
He at once confesses it, and seeks no other extenuation than is to be found in the usual plea of moral and momentary blindness. Passaruang was the last Javan town visited by Dr. Selberg. He had promised himself much pleasure in exploring the province of the same name, and in examining the various objects of interest it contains.
Selberg's stay at Surubaya, he saw a large junk, containing four hundred of them, compelled to put back without landing a passenger. Thus their numbers are kept stationary, or may even be said to decrease; for in 1817, Raffles estimated the Chinese in Java at nearly a hundred thousand, whilst Dr. Selberg, twenty years later, calculates them at eighty-five thousand.
Shocked by this cynical proceeding on the part of his entertainer, Dr. Selberg left the house the next day, after presenting Von N. with a double-barrelled gun in payment of his hospitality. Throughout Java, and even where hotels exist, private houses are invariably open to the stranger, and his reception is most cordial.
After the skull had travelled many hundred miles, it was brought to Samarang, and there the English resident had it thrown into the sea. The Javans looked on quietly, and held the curse to be neutralised by the white men's intervention. Dr. Selberg gives various other examples, observed by himself, of the ridiculous superstitions of these simple islanders.
The paroxysm over, remorse assails him, and he bewails the sad results of his matta glab or blinded eye, by which term the Javans frequently designate the amók. Apprehension of danger often brings on this species of delirium. "Two Javans," says Dr. Selberg, "married men, and intimate friends, went one day to Tjandjur, to sell bamboo baskets.
Selberg was able to enjoy his voyage and make his observations. The latter were at first confined to the dolphins, sharks, and shoals of flying-fish which surrounded the vessel; and as to the enjoyment, it was of very short duration. After the first month, the cool trade-wind left them, and they suffered from intolerable heat.
And European physicians have as yet done little against the effects of this poison, whose ingredients they cannot discover with sufficient accuracy to counteract them. A medical man told Dr. Selberg that copper dust and human hair were amongst them, combined with other substances entirely unknown to him. The dose is usually administered in rice, the chief food of the Javans.
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