mates they left these; but they found none of them, though they saw impressions of large footsteps.[1]
"The Ceramers are subjects, and likewise allies, of the Dutch Company, and for the most part expert sailors; and by them, and none else, is the coast of New Guinea visited. The inhabitants of New Guinea have for many years suffered from the treachery and murders of this people, who, not by force of arms but by cunning, have subdued the Papoos. Under the cloak of friendship they take their women (in which they are not very choice) for wives, and the children thus born, being very carefully instructed in the Mahomedan faith, are easily able to control these simple inhabitants of the woods. By this connection, also, the Ceramers, having gained the attachment of the women, always know how to escape the evil intentions which, for all that, the Papoos cannot restrain themselves from trying to put in practice against their visitors.
"The fruits of the country of New Guinea are very few, consisting chiefly in some few yams, cocoa nuts, betel nuts, and plantain trees, which are planted here and there, in the neighbourhood of their own places, by the Ceramers. The land does not seem to bring forth any wild plants; the inhabitants live on leaf zajor,[2] roots of trees and herbs, but the bread of the Moluccas, in general called sagou, is not produced here, as far as I could learn. Only one sort of it is brought here by the Ceramers for their own provision, and also for barter. Fish of all sorts is everywhere so plentiful along the shore that they may be caught with the greatest ease in uncommon abundance; but they want nets and other fishing tackle, though they supply this defect in a masterly manner by their art in making their fish
- ↑ In another place Witsen says this happened in 1658, and that eighty persons were so left behind, evidently from the crew of the Waeckende Boey, see ante, p. 81
- ↑ So in the Dutch. The editor has been unable to identify this plant.
