IN A NATIVE PRAU. 411 the roof. During these four miserable days I was quite jolly in this little snuggery-more so than I should have been if confined the same time to the gilded and uncomfortable saloon of a first-class steamer. Then, how comparatively sweet was every thing on board-no paint, no tar, no new rope (vilest of smells to the qualmish !), no grease, or oil, or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan, and coir rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell pleasantly if they smell at all, and recall quiet scenes in the green and shady forest. Our ship had two masts, if masts they can be called, which were great movable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the shrouds and backstay by strong timbers, and take away the mast altogether, you have the arrangement adopted on board a prau. Above my cabin, and resting on crossbeams attached to the masts, was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo. The main yard, an immense affair nearly a hundred feet long, was formed of many pieces of wood and bamboo bound together with rattans in an ingenious manner. The sail carried by this was of an oblong shape, and was hung out of the centre, so that when the short end was hauled down on deck the long end mounted high in the air, making up for the lowness of the mast itself. The foresail was of the same shape, but smaller. Both these were of matting, and, with two jibs and a fore-and-aft sail astern of cotton canvas, completed our rig. The crew consisted of about thirty men, natives of Macassar and the adjacent coasts and islands. They were mostly young, and were short, broad-faced, good-humored looking fellows. Their dress consisted generally of a pair of trowsers only when at work, and a handkerchief twisted round the head, to which in the evening they would add a thin cotton jacket. Four of the elder men were "jurumudis," or steersmen, who had to squat (two at a time) in the little steerage before described, changing every six hours. Then there was an old man, the "juragan," or captain, but who was really what we should call the first mate; he occupied the other half of the little house on deck. There were about ten respectable men, Chinese or Bugis, whom our owner used to call "his own people." He treated them very well, shared his meals with them, and spoke to them always with perfect politeness; yet they were most of them a kind of slave debtors, bound over by the police magistrate to work for him at mere nominal wages for a term of years till their debts were liquidated. This is a Dutch institution in this part of the world, and seems to work well. It is a great boon to traders, who can do nothing in these thinly-populated regions without trusting goods to agents and petty dealers, who frequently squander them away in gambling and debauchery. The lower classes are almost all in a chronic state of debt. The merchant trusts them again and again, till the amount is something serious, when he brings them to court, and has their services allotted to him for its liquidation. The debtors seem to think this no disgrace, but rather enjoy their freedom from responsibility, and the dignity of their position under a wealthy and wellknown merchant. They trade a little on their own account, and both parties seem to get on very well together. The plan seems a more sensible one than that which we adopt, of effectually preventing a man from earning any thing toward pay ing his debts by shutting him up in a jail. My own servants were three in number. Ali, the Malay boy whom I had picked up in Borneo, was my head man. He had already been with me a year, could turn his hand to any thing, and was quite attentive and trustworthy. He was a good shot, and fond of shooting, and I had taught him to skin birds very well. The second, named Baderoon, was a Macassar lad, also a pretty good boy, but a desperate gambler. Under pretense of buying a house for his mother and clothes for himself, he had received four months' wages about a week before we sailed, and in a day or two gambled away every dollar of it. He had come on board with no clothes, no betel, or tobacco, or salt fish, all which necessary articles I was obliged to send Ali to buy for him. These two lads were about sixteen, I should suppose; the third was younger, a sharp little rascal named Baso, who had been with me a month or two, and had learned to cook tolerably. He was to fulfill the important office of cook and house-keeper, for I could not get any regular servants to go to such a terribly remote country; one might as well ask a chef de cuisine to go to Patagonia. On the fifth day that I had spent on board (Dec. 15th) the IN A NATIVE PRAU. 413 rain ceased, and final preparations were made for starting. Sails were dried and furled, boats were constantly coming and going, and stores for the voyage, fruit, vegetables, fish, and palm-sugar, were taken on board. In the afternoon two women arrived with a large party of friends and relations, and at parting there was a general nose-rubbing (the Malay kiss), and some tears shed. These were promising symptoms for our getting off the next day; and accordingly, at three in the morning, the owner came on board, the anchor was immediately weighed, and by four we set sail. Just as we were fairly off and clear of the other praus, the old juragan repeated some prayers, all around responding with "Allah il Allah," and a few strokes on a gong as an accompaniment, concluding with all wishing each other "Salaamat jalan," a safe and happy journey. We had a light breeze, a calm sea, and a fine morning, a prosperous commencement of our voyage of about a thousand miles to the far-famed Aru Islands. The wind continued light and variable all day, with a calm in the evening before the land-breeze sprang up. We were then passing the island of "Tanakaki" (foot of the land), at the extreme south of this part of Celebes. There are some dangerous rocks here; and as I was standing by the bulwarks, I happened to spit over the side, one of the men begged I would not do so just now, but spit on deck, as they were much afraid of this place. Not quite comprehending, I made him repeat his request, when, seeing he was in earnest, I said, "Very well, I suppose there are 'hantus' (spirits) here." "Yes," said he," and they don't like any thing to be thrown overboard; many a pran has been lost by doing it." Upon which I promised to be very careful. At sunset the good Mohammedans on board all repeated a few words of prayer, with a general chorns, reminding me of the pleasing and impressive "Ave Maria" of Catholic countries. Dec. 20th.-At sunrise we were opposite the Bontyne mountain, said to be one of the highest in Celebes. In the afternoon we passed the Salayer Straits, and had a little squall, which obliged us to lower our huge mast, sails, and heavy yards. The rest of the evening we had a fine west wind, which carried us on at near five knots an hour, as much as our lumbering old tub can possibly go. Dec. 21st.-A heavy swell from the south-west, rolling us about most uncomfortably. A steady wind was blowing, however, and we got on very well. Dec. 22d.-The swell had gone down. We passed Boutong, a large island, high, woody, and populous, the native place of some of our crew. A small prau returning from Bali to the island of Goram overtook us. The nakoda (captain) was known to our owner. They had been two years away, but were full of people, with several black Papuans on board. At 6 P.M. we passed Wangiwangi, low, but not flat, inhabited, and subject to Boutong. We had now fairly entered the Molucca Sea. After dark it was a beautiful sight to look down on our rudders, from which rushed eddying streams of phosphoric light gemmed with whirling sparks of fire. It resembled (more nearly than any thing else to which I can compare it) one of the large irregular nebulous star-clusters seen through a good telescope, with the additional attraction of ever-changing form and dancing motion. Dec. 23d.-Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening barely visible behind us; the Goram prau about a mile south of us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true course during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction of which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night. In these seas they are never (in fine weather) more than two days without seeing land. Of course adverse winds or currents sometimes carry them away, but they soon fall in with some island, and there are always some old sailors on board who know it, and thence take a new course. Last night a shark about five feet long was caught, and this morning it was cut up and cooked. In the afternoon they got another, and I had a little fried, and found it firm and dry, but very palatable. In the evening the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, which, as darkness came on, assumed a fearfully black appearance. According to custom, when strong wind or rain is expected our large sails were furled, and, with their yards, let down on deck, and a small square foresail alone kept up. The great mat-sails are most awkward things to manage in rough weather. The yards which support them are seventy feet long, and of course very heavy; and the only way to furl them being to roll up the sail IN A NATIVE PRAU. 415 on the boom, it is a very dangerous thing to have them standing when overtaken by a squall. Our crew, though numerous enough for a vessel of 700 instead of 70 tons, have it very much their own way, and there seems to be seldom more than a dozen at work at a time. When any thing important is to be done, however, all start up willingly enough; but then all think themselves at liberty to give their opinion, and half a doz en voices are heard giving orders, and there is such a shrieking and confusion that it seems wonderful any thing gets done at all. Considering we have fifty men of several tribes and tongues on board, wild, half-savage looking fellows, and few of them feeling any of the restraints of morality or education, we get on wonderfully well. There is no fighting or quarrelling, as there would certainly be among the same number of Europeans with as little restraint upon their actions, and there is scarcely any of that noise and excitement which might be expected. In fine weather the greater part of them are quietly enjoying themselves some are sleeping under the shadow of the sails; others, in little groups of three or four, are talking or chewing betel; one is making a new handle to his chopping-knife, another is stitching away at a new pair of trowsers or a shirt, and all are as quiet and well-conducted as on board the bestordered English merchantman. Two or three take it by turns to watch in the bows and see after the braces and halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and at watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock. This is a very ingenious contrivance, which measures time well in both rough weather and fine. It is simply a bucket half filled with water, in which floats the half of a well-scraped cocoa-nut shell. In the bottom of this shell is a very small hole, so that when placed to float in the bucket a fine thread of water squirts up into it. This gradually fills the shell, and the size of the hole is so adjusted to the capacity of the vessel that, exactly at the end of an hour, plump it goes to the bottom. The watch then cries out the number of hours from sunrise, and sets the shell afloat again empty. This is a very good |