And again, not many years ago, a report came to them that some Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they went to Dobbo to see about it, and the owner of the house, who was now speaking to me, was one who went; but the Bugis man would not let them see the children, and threatened to kill them if they came into his house.

He kept the children shut up in a large box, and when he went away he took them with him.

And at the end of each of these stories, they begged me in an imploring tone to tell them if I knew where their chief and their people now were.
By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangers who had taken away their people.

They said they were wonderfully strong, and each one could kill a great many Aru men; and when they were wounded, however badly, they spit upon the place, and it immediately became well.
And they made a great net of rattans, and entangled their prisoners in it, and sunk them in the water; and the next day, when they pulled the net up on shore, they made the drowned men come to life again, and carried them away.
Much more of the same kind was told me, but in so confused and rambling a manner that I could make nothing out of it, till I inquired how long ago it was that all this happened, when they told me that after their people were taken away the Bugis came in their praus to trade in Aru, and to buy tripang and birds' nests.

It is not impossible that something similar to what they related to me really happened when the early Portuguese discoverers first came to Aru, and has formed the foundation for a continually increasing accumulation of legend and fable.