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We slept until the clouds had done their worst, and then strolled out to do a little shopping.  I ordered a pair of white kid sandals, made by hand and to order, for three guilders.

Our hotel room looks out on the local movie theatre, where a special childrens' performance was given at 6.15, the 12th installment of "Tailspin Tommy", and all through the evening roars of excited laughter rolled into our room.

April 16 -

Buitenbos invited us to spend a couple of days at his father-in-law's plantation across the bay, and we started early in the morning.  After a brief walk around town, we came to his house, where his wife teaches tennis and runs a florist business.  In front of the house was his prau, a good-sized row boat, but because of the shallow beach we had to wade out to the boat.  Williams lost heart when he saw what we were doing, but Bill and I took off our shoes and picked our way gingerly out to the prau, Buitenbos explaining that "it is the fashion in Ambon."  Four men rowed us across the bay, which took about half an hour, and we came into the beach there on the crest of a wave, and waded ashore.

Mrs. Ernsten, B's mother-in-law, came down to the beach to welcome us, a neat little old Malay woman in a pretty blue sarong and long white jacket.  P apa Ernsten greeted us on the verandah, a fat, light-brown Swede of 78 years, unable to do much any more except shuffle in bedroom slippers from the dining-room to the porch rocking-chair and back again.  In his youth he was Controller at Dobo, during the days of native insurrections.  The gun, with which he killed many natives, is now used by his son-in-law to shoot cuscus.  In 1909 he started this coconut plantation on the beach, and divides his time between the plantation and his spacious town house across the water.  B. told us that his father had been given a medal by the Dutch government, and that it was not an ordinary decoration but a good medal:  he gets Fl.200 a year on it, and when he dies his wife will get Fl. 100 a year.

We went for a walk in the forest in back of the plantation, and Bill found Polyrachus, and the nest it makes on the under side of leaves.  Parrots flew over our heads, screaming, but too high to get a good glimpse of them.  Fruits of all kinds, both wild and cultivated, were all over the place.  We drank coconut water, ate wild passion fruit, and saw nutmeg and clove trees.  There are a lot of durian trees here, and in several places we saw the small thatched shelters where the natives watch for the fruit to fall.  We saw one fruit come crashing down to the ground, and realized how dangerous it is to stop for long under a tree that drops such heavy spiked fruit.

Back at the house for lunch, we found that Mrs. Buitenbos had sent over by prau an interesting reistafel, acco panied by a delicious small fried fish, chicken, and saiyo - a local dish consisting of green leaves of trees, stewed in coconut milk.  Everything is fried in coconut oil, B. explaining that "this is a good system; it is not a good system to fry in butter".  We had on the table three kinds of bananas, small fruits called lansop (something like passion fruit) and gondoria (something like a small mango), the most delicious mangosteens, kanari nuts, rambutan, sago bread.  The mangosteens are deep brownish red on the outside, and a beautiful

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