1

bore all the holes with hot irons—a most tedious and unsatis

factory operation.

Five men had been engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then go with me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate. Their ideas of work were, however, very different from mine, and I had immense difficulty with them; seldom more than two or three coming together, and a hundred excuses being given for working only half a day when they did come. Yet they were constantly begging advances of money, saying they had nothing to eat. When I gave it them they were sure to stay away the next day, and when I refused any further advances some of them declined working any more. As the boat approached completion my difficulties with the men increased. The uncle of one had commenced a war, or sort of faction fight, and wanted his assistance; another's wife was ill, and would not let him come; a third had fever and ague, and pains in his head and back; and a fourth had an inexorable creditor who would not let him go out of his sight. They had all received a month's wages in advance; and though the amount was not large, it was necessary to make them pay it back, or I should get no men at all. I therefore sent the village constable after two, and kept them in custody a day, when they returned about three-fourths of what they owed me. The sick man also paid, and the steersman found a substitute who was willing to take his debt, and receive only the balance of his wages.

About this time we had a striking proof of the dangers of New Guinea trading. Six men arrived at the village in a small boat almost starved, having escaped out of two praus, the remainder of whose crews (fourteen in number) had been murdered by the natives of New Guinea. The praus had left this village a few months before, and among the murdered men were the Rajah's son, and the relations or slaves of many of the inhabitants. The cry of lamentation that arose when the news arrived was most distressing. A score of women, who had lost husbands, brothers, sons, or more distant relatives, set up at once the most dismal shrieks and groans and wailings, which continued at intervals till late at night; and as the chief houses in the village were crowded together round that which I occupied, our situation was any thing but agreeable.

MASSACRE BY PAPUANS.

379

It seems that the village where the attack took place (nearly opposite the small island of Lakahia) is known to be dangerous, and the vessels had only gone there a few days before to buy some tripang. The crew were living on shore, the praus being in a small river close by, and they were attacked and murdered in the daytime while bargaining with the Papuans. The six men who survived were on board the praus, and escaped by at once getting into the small boat and rowing out to sea.

This south-west part of New Guinea, known to the native traders as "Papua Kowiyee" and "Papua Onen," is inhabited by the most treacherous and bloodthirsty tribes. It is in these districts that the commanders and portions of the crews of many of the early discovery ships were murdered, and scarcely a year now passes but some lives are lost. The Goram and Ceram traders are themselves generally inoffensive; they are well acquainted with the character of these natives, and are not likely to provoke an attack by any insults or open attempt at robbery or imposition. They are accustomed to visit the same places every year, and the natives can have no fear of them, as may be alleged in excuse for their attacks on Europeans. In other extensive districts inhabited by the same Papuan races, such as Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and some parts of the adjacent coast, the people have taken the first step in civilization, owing probably to the settlement of traders of mixed breed among them, and for many years no such attacks have taken place. On the south-west coast, and in the large island of Jobie, however, the natives are in a very barbarous condition, and take every opportunity of robbery and murder-a habit which is confirmed by the impunity they experience, owing to the vast extent of wild mountain and forest country forbidding all pursuit or attempt at punishment. In the very same village, four years before, more than fifty Goram men were murdered; and as these savages obtain an immense booty in the praus and all their appurtenances, it is to be feared that such attacks will continue to be made at intervals as long as traders visit the same spots and attempt no retaliation. Punishment could only be inflicted on these people by very arbitrary measures, such as by obtaining possession of some of the chiefs by stratagem, and rendering them responsible

for the capture of the murderers at the peril of their own heads. But any thing of this kind would be quite contrary to the system adopted by the Dutch Government in its dealings with natives.

GORAM TO WAHAI IN CERAM.

When my boat was at length launched and loaded, I got my men together, and actually set sail the next day (May 27th), much to the astonishment of the Goram people, to whom such punctuality was a novelty. I had a crew of three men and a boy, besides my two Amboyna lads; which was sufficient for sailing, though rather too few if obliged to row much. The next day was very wet, with squalls, calms, and contrary winds, and with some difficulty we reached Kilwaru, the metropolis of the Bugis traders in the far East. As I wanted to make some purchases, I staid here two days, and sent two of my boxes of specimens by a Macassar prau to be forwarded to Ternate, thus relieving myself of a considerable incumbrance. I bought knives, basins, and handkerchiefs for barter, which with the choppers, cloth, and beads I had brought with me, made a pretty good assortment. I also bought two Tower muskets to satisfy my crew, who insisted on the necessity of being armed against attacks of pirates; and with spices and a few articles of food for the voyage, nearly my last doit was expended.

The little island of Kilwaru is a mere sandbank, just large enough to contain a small village, and situated between the islands of Ceram-laut and Kissa-straits about a third of a mile wide separating it from each of them. It is surrounded by coral reefs, and offers good anchorage in both monsoons. Though not more than fifty yards across, and not elevated more than three or four feet above the highest tides, it has wells of excellent drinking-water-a singular phenomenon, which would seem to imply deep-seated subterranean channels connecting it with other islands. These advantages, with its situation in the centre of the Papuan trading-district, lead to its being so much frequented by the Bugis traders. Here the Goram men bring the produce of their little voyages, which they exchange for cloth, sago cakes, and opium; and the inhabitants of all the surrounding islands visit it with the

MY CREW RUN AWAY.

381

same object. It is the rendezvous of the praus trading to various parts of New Guinea, which here assort and dry their cargoes, and refit for the voyage home. Tripang and mussoi bark are the most bulky articles of produce brought here, with wild nutmegs, tortoise-shell, pearls, and birds of paradise, in smaller quantities. The villages of the main-land of Ceram bring their sago, which is thus distributed to the islands farther east, while rice from Bali and Macassar can also be purchased at a moderate price. The Goram men come here for their supplies of opium, both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and Waigiou, where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and wealthy men are passionately fond of it. Schooners from Bali come to buy Papuan slaves, while the sea-wandering Bugis arrive from distant Singapore in their lumbering praus, bringing thence the produce of the Chinamen s workshops and Kling's bazar, as well as of the looms of Lancashire and Massachusetts.

One of the Bugis traders, who had arrived a few days before from Mysol, brought me news of my assistant Charles Allen, with whom he was well acquainted, and who, he assured me, was making large collections of birds and insects, although he had not obtained any birds of paradise; Silinta, where he was staying, not being a good place for them. This was on the whole satisfactory, and I was anxious to reach him as soon as possible.

Leaving Kilwaru early in the morning of June 1st, with a strong east wind we doubled the point of Ceram about noon, the heavy sea causing my prau to roll about a good deal to the damage of our crockery. As bad weather seemed coming on, we got inside the reefs and anchored opposite the village of Warus-warus to wait for a change. The night was very squally, and though in a good harbor, we rolled and jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our entire Goram crew had decamped, taking with them all they possessed and a little more, and leaving us without any small boat in which to land. I immediately told my Amboyna men to load and fire the muskets as a signal of distress, which was soon answered by the village chief sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested that messengers should be immediately sent to the neighboring

villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My prau was brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest in the mud at low water, and part of a house was given me, in which I could stay for a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, just when I thought I had overcome my chief difficulties. As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness, and had given them almost every thing they had asked for, I can impute their running away only to their being totally unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and for some undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The oldest man was an opium-smoker, and a reputed thief; but I had been obliged to take him at the last moment as a substitute for another. I feel sure it was he who induced the others to run away; and as they knew the country well, and had several hours' start of us, there was little chance of catching them.

We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram, which supplies most of the surrounding islands with their daily bread, and during one week's delay I had an opportunity of seeing the whole process of making it, and obtaining some interesting statistics. The sago-tree is a palm, thicker and larger than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny leaves, which completely cover the trunk till it is many years old. It has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa palm, and when about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies. It grows in swamps or in swampy hollows on the rocky slopes of hills, where it seems to thrive equally well as when exposed to the influx of salt or brackishwater. The midribs of the immense leaves form one of the most useful articles in these lands, supplying the place of bamboo, to which for many purposes they are superior. They are twelve or fifteen feet long, and when very fine, as thick in the lower part as a man's leg. They are very light, consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with a hard thin rind or bark. Entire houses are built of these; they form admirable roofing-poles for thatch; split and well-supported, they do for flooring; and when chosen of equal size, and pegged together side by side to fill up the panels of framed wooden houses, they have a very neat appearance, and make better walls and partitions than boards, as