Eleven years ago, I had the _Fulmar_ a ten months' cruise out of Singapore, and was finally coming down along Celebes, intending to go over to Batavia. We anchored on just such a day as this has been, off a little old river-mouth, so badly silted that she had to lie well out. A chief in a _campong_ half a day inland had promised to send some specimens down that evening,--armor, harps, stone Priapuses, and birds of paradise. The men were to come overland, and would have no boats. So I went ashore with three or four Malays, and the Old Boy's time we had poking in and out over the silt to find fairway, even for the gig. At last we could make round toward a little clearing in the bamboos, with a big canary tree in the middle. All was going well, when suddenly the mate grunted, pointing dead ahead. That man Sidin has the most magnificent eyes: we were steering straight into a dazzling glare. I couldn't see anything, neither could the crew, for some time. "_Tuggur_!" cried the mate. He was getting nervous. Then all of a sudden--"_Brenti_!" The crew stopped like a shot. Then they saw, too, and began to back water and turn, all pulling different ways and yelling: "_Prau hantu!... sampar_! _...Sakit lepra! Kolera!... hantu!_" As we swung, I saw what it was,--a little carved prau like a child's toy boat, perhaps four feet long, with red fiber sails and red and gilt flags from stem to stern. It was rocking there in our swell, innocently, but the crew were pulling for the schooner like crazy men. I was griffin enough at the time, but I knew what it meant, of course,--it was an enchanted boat, that the priests in some village--perhaps clear over in New Guinea--had charmed the cholera or the plague on board of. Same idea as the Hebrew scapegoat. "_Brenti_!" I shouted. The Malays stopped rowing, but let her run. Nothing would have tempted them within oar's-length of that prau. "See here, Sidin," I protested, "I go ashore to meet the _kapala's_ men." "We do not go," the fellow said. "If you go, Tuan, you die: the priest has laid the cholera on board that prau. It has come to this shore. Do not go, Tuan." "She hasn't touched the land yet," I said. This seemed to have effect. "Row me round to that point and land me," I ordered. "_Hantu_ does not come to white men. You go out to the ship; when I have met the soldier-messengers, row back, and take me on board with the gifts."