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Updated: May 14, 2025
We assisted in cutting it, but we could not make much progress; and Potto Jumbo devoted a couple of days to that work, so that we have now enough. We find great difficulty, however, in beating off the hull in a large mortar. We had seen Tanda do it, when not a grain was driven out; but when we attempted it, we sent them flying out in all directions.
I felt an unusual melancholy steal over me, why I cannot tell, while, by the light of a lamp fed by cocoa-nut oil manufactured by my uncle and his factotum Tanda, I sat writing these lines of my journal: "To-morrow morning Ali and I are going off in the hopes of obtaining a nautilus, and he feels confident that we shall get one, probably at a reef which he knows of at some distance, almost out of sight of the island.
Mr Hooker, however, after our greetings were over, told us that as Tanda had been on the sea-shore, collecting shell-fish as a variety to their repast, he had seen, at no great distance from the land, several prows, which, from their build and general appearance, he was sure were those of Sooloo rovers, or perhaps pirates from the coast of Borneo.
Passing a piece of the remaining rope round my waist, I begged my uncle and Oliver to hold it, while Tanda paid out the cable, of which but a small part now only remained. I rushed forward as the person was borne onward towards the rock.
At length the operation of feeding them was over, and he expressed himself ready to accompany us to the boat. He addressed a few words to his man, Tanda, he called him, adding, as he walked away, "Don't fear, my lad; I am not going to desert you. He does not understand that, by the by;" and, turning round again, he spoke to the man in a strange language. He put up his hand to look at the brig.
However, Grace and I begged that we might not be asked to sup upon it, as the appearance of the animal was far from tempting. Mr Hooker called the creature Oliver had shot a Pteropus. Although, through the industry of my uncle and Tanda, we were well supplied with vegetable food, we were greatly in want of meat.
"Potto Jumbo is a very good sea-cook," he observed to me, "but not quite capable of producing a dish fit for an invalid; and as to my Dyak, Tanda, his ideas are somewhat limited in that way." The weather continued fine, and the vessel hung together; but the boatswain was of opinion that should another gale come on, she would quickly go to pieces.
I hope Tanda has been equally successful! Sad was the change which came over his countenance when I told him what had occurred. Not till then did I know how anxious I had been. The sun all the time was burning down on my head, and a sudden sickness overpowered me. I knew no more till I found myself in the shade of the banyan-trees, near the cool fountain I have described.
Our uncle calculates that there are eighteen known species, all remarkable for their beauty, and the curious arrangements and colour of their plumage. Poor Tanda used to look after them, and now Oliver and Grace and I have undertaken the task as far as we are able. We had for a long time given up watching for Walter.
Tanda is about a league from the river Ganges, as in times past the river flowed over its banks in the rainy season, and drowned a considerable extent of country with many villages, and so it yet remains, and the old bed of the river still remains dry, by which means the city now stands at a distance from the water.
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