The Island of Stone Money

One evening when old Fatumak appeared to be in a philosophical mood and Friedlander was at hand as a kind interpreter, a favourable opportunity seemed present to ask the reader of the future to turn back the pages of his memory and tell what he knew of the dim and misty past, -- when and how and by whom this fair little tropical world was created. After the question was put to him, he sat silent for a while, with his eyes cast down fixedly on a fresh bolus of betel nut, for the various condiments whereof he was rummaging in his betel basket on the floor beside him.

When the mixture was duly spread out upon the green leaf of wild pepper, to add the last supreme touch, he took up his bamboo box of powdered lime, holding it between his thumb and middle finger and, tapping it meditatively with his forefinger, shook out a sprinkling of lime through the small hole in the bottom; then he lovingly folded the leaf over its contents, and throwing his head back and rolling up his eyes, crammed the bolus far back in his cheek, then in a somewhat muffled voice at length replied, "There are many strange stories about those times, but I think they are all untrue, yet what I am now about to tell you I know is just what really happened. " He leaned back against the door post and ruminated quietly, while Friedlander explained to me what had just been said, and then Fatumak resumed, with the following story, which I give without the frequent interruptions: "Long, long ago when there was nothing but sea and sky, and no land, there was a large piece of driftwood like the trunk of a coconut palm floating on the waves; on the under side of it was a great barnacle, and out of this came the first woman, and she lived in the water and never went up on top of the huge log. Very soon she had a daughter, whom she warned that on no account was she to go up on top of the log. The daughter's curiosity was, however, too much for her and when it was low tide and the bottom of the sea came up to meet the log, she crept up on top, and a _gal_ tree [hibiscus] grew down from the sky and stuck fast to the log and held it in one place. When she got up into the air and daylight, she found that the driftwood was inhabited by all sorts of devils (_kan_) that hover about on the surface of the sea, and they were all clothed, but she was not. As soon as the clothed devils of the sea caught sight of her and saw that she was not like themselves and was naked, they killed her and preserved her body in salt.