Voyage in Search of La Pérouse/Chapter 8
CHAP. VIII.
At half an hour past three o'clock we saluted the place with nine guns, and the same number was immediately returned.
The Commander had engaged all his officers to accompany him, about five in the evening, on a visit to the Governor. As I knew nothing of this appointment, I landed, along with some persons belonging to our ship, to view the town. It is encircled with gardens, in which trees are chiefly cultivated; because they favour the indolence natural to man in a sultry climate, and afford him a profusion of fruits, with little other trouble than that of gathering them.
Besides the kind of wild bread-fruit tree which we met with there, the inhabitants assured us that there was another which bore a fruit, the seeds of which all misgive; but that the fruit was only of a middling size, and the tree did not produce a great quantity of it.
Several kinds of banana trees, and many varieties of oranges grow in those charming gardens; and they produce delicious guavas, papaws, and different species of pine-apples (anones). We observed there some specimens of the lawsonia inermis, which rose to the height of ten or twelve feet.
Different odoriferous plants were profusely scattered around. We there found the chalcas paniculata, the michelia champaca and tsiampaca, and several species of the uvaria. The Arabian jessamine, nyctanthes sambac, rising amidst those charming trees, mixed its sweet odour with their delightful perfumes.
On our return into the town, one of the protestant ministers conducted us to his house, where he entertained us with several sorts of spirituous liquors. But limpid water, just drawn from the spring, was the most agreeable draught to persons, who had long been confined to brackish water and salted provisions. This excellent minister appeared to be much surprised at our being regaled at so small an expence. He informed us that earthquakes were frequent at Amboyna, and that some years ago one, among others, had been very forcibly felt; that it was accompanied with a hurricane which continued nearly three days, during which time the sea had overflowed, and inundated the ground on which the town is built.
This calamity is the most to be dreaded at the change of the monsoons, and particularly at the commencement of the western monsoon, which takes place, in those latitudes, in the month of November.
7th. One of the cabin-boys, of the name of Gabriel Abalen, who served the table of the marine officers, disappeared on the night of the 7th. He had been observed to be on board all day; but after dark was called several times in vain. He was a good-natured young man, and in general very temperate; but, during that day, had drunk so much strong liquor, as to justify serious apprehensions concerning him. He probably fell overboard, and it was known that he could not swim.
All of us had much need of remaining on shore, in order to recover our strength; and the Governor gave us leave to take lodgings in the town.
8th. It was a matter of importance to the naturalists to be acquainted with the Governor of Amboyna, in order that he might facilitate the researches which formed the object of their mission. It was, no doubt, owing to pure forgetfulness, that the Commander of our expedition did not make us acquainted with the hour of his first visit to the Governor. But I requested him to favour us with an introduction, and we accordingly set out for that purpose, about half an hour past six. M. Bourguelles and M. Van Smiehl pressed themselves upon us as our interpreters.
M. Van Smiehl was a German Baron, who had lately arrived in the island. He was then but aspiring, as he expressed it, to be a servant of the Dutch East India Company. In the sequel, we had reason to felicitate ourselves that he had not much influence on the Governor; for he had attempted to persuade him, that the Regency of Batavia would not approve of our ships being allowed to remain at Amboyna. Yet the Baron very well knew that, in the preceding year, two small English vessels, fitted out at Bombay for the Pelew Islands, had been received without the least difficulty. They had first put in at Bourou; but, finding no provisions there, had been permitted to ship some at Amboyna; and those vessels were far from having so good a title as we had to such indulgence. But, perhaps, the appearance of foreign vessels in that road, for two years successively, made it necessary for the Governor to take every precaution, in order to save his responsibility. He received us very favourably; but we were unhappy that he appeared in his ceremonial dress on our account; for he was oppressed with heat, under a very heavy coat of black velvet. Such garments are extremely incommodious near the Line, but the Dutch Governors wear them, as a prerogative annexed to their station.
Some refreshment was offered to us. I wished for nothing but water, and I poured out that which appeared the most limpid; but its saltish taste made me think that the domestics had, by mistake, brought me some medicinal water. It was in fact Seltzer-water, which the Dutch here usually drink as an agreeable potation; and it costs them as much as the best rhenish wine. Surely they were not aware of our repugnance to such a beverage; yet they might have supposed that, in a torrid climate, and after a long privation of fresh provisions, we would not be very fond of swallowing salt water.
The General proposed to introduce us to the members of the Council also, to which we readily assented; and they gave us a very kind reception.
10th. As we intended to remain at Amboyna, for a month at the least, I had conveyed to the place where we were to lodge, many things necessary for the preparation of the different productions, which I intended to collect in the island. The other naturalists and I had agreed to live in the same house. It was already prepared for our reception, and our things had been carried into it, when, to our great astonishment, we found it occupied by some officers from the two ships, who, however, knew very well that we had taken the house; but the man who had the key thought that they belonged to our party. The gentlemen made themselves very merry with this pitiful trick, of which we did not think them capable; but it was easy for us to find other lodgings.
Our apprehensions respecting the cabin-boy, who had disappeared three days before, were but too well founded. His body had remained at the bottom of the water all that time; but, about half an hour past two in the afternoon, it was seen floating near the ship. This small distance from the place where he had fallen into the sea seemed to prove, contrary to the opinion of most of the Europeans settled at Amboyna, that the rapidity of the currents in the road is confined to the surface merely, and does not reach the bottom, a circumstance which, for other reasons, appears to me very probable. In fact the currents are determined by the tides, pouring their waters into and out of the road, only to restore their equilibrium, which, in these circumstances, is disturbed to but a small depth from the surface.
This young man was much regretted by all the ship's company. Many exclaimed against the carelessness of those, who had had the charge of him in his early years, in neglecting to instruct him in swimming. A few lessons in that art would have saved the lad's life; and it is to be wished that his fate may serve as an example to others; for I have observed with astonishment, that many of the sailors cannot swim.
Our observatory was this day established, in the western part of the town. As it could not be seen from the ship, it was found inconvenient to be obliged to go upon the beach, in order to compare the motion of the watches with that of the clocks.
This western part of the town, in which we also resided, formed the Chinese quarter, in which there are few natives of the island, and only one Dutchman. The rest of the Dutch inhabit the centre of the town, or its eastern part.
Our strength was so reduced, that we were obliged to content ourselves, for some days, with short excursions from the town.
We viewed the garden of the Company, where there is nothing remarkable but a very convenient bath, which the Governor visited regularly every third or fourth day. It is supplied with very pure water from a neighbouring hill. Near it is another bath appropriated to the use of the women.
The Dutch at Amboyna are in the habit of bathing every third or fourth day, when they carefully avoid exposing themselves to the excessive heat, which prevails from eleven in the morning till three in the afternoon. Indeed they are seldom seen abroad during those hours on other days. For our parts, we had not leisure to take so many precautions; and accordingly two of the naturalists were attacked with dangerous disorders.
We many times endeavoured to penetrate into the large plantations of sago trees; but the water with which they are floated often forced us to abandon the attempt. That tree, so useful for the support of man, forms a part of the riches of the island.
The flat strand, at low water, is covered in many places with a multitude of crabs, of the species denominated cancer volans, which then emerge from the holes which they dig in the soft ground. This singular creature, one of whose claws is sometimes larger than its body, often becomes the prey of birds. I believe the facility with which its claws are disjoined from its body is the reason why one of them is almost always much larger than the other.[1]
A little excursion to the south of the town, near the quarter inhabited by the Europeans, brought us to the tomb of Rumphius. The simplicity of this monument reminded us of the manners of that able observer of nature. It was encircled with the beautiful shrub, known by the name of panax fruticosum.
We saw, in the hands of some natives, the pretty lorry of the Philippines. These, however, were not procured from so great a distance, but from some islands a little to the eastward of Amboyna, and chiefly those of Arrou. They had also another species of the lorry, which breeds in the forests of Amboyna, and which differs from the former in its colours, which are less vivid, and not so beautifully blended. Most of those parrots pronounced some words of the Malayan language.
Towards noon, the heat of the sun affected us with such a head-ach, as forced us almost always to retire to some shade, in order to defend ourselves from his direct rays.
Very early on the morning of the 15th we proceeded towards the west; but about mid-day the heat was so very oppressive, that we were obliged to return home.
The naturalist who did the duty of chaplain, became so dangerously ill, that we could not leave him a single moment for four successive days. The symptoms of the malignant fever, with which he was attacked, were very dreadful. His stools were extremely fetid, and accompanied with frequent vomitings, starting of the tendons, a small pulse and great prostration of strength. The nervous affection of the patient came to such a height, that every evacuation was attended with a degree of weakness which deprived him of recollection. His lower extremities were affected with violent spasms, which occasioned very great pain.
Although the disease was exceedingly infectious, no danger ought to have prevented us from paying to our distressed ship-mate, all the attention which he had a right to expect from our friendship; and accordingly we suspended our researches in natural history, till we should see him out of danger.
16th. The next day the symptoms became still more alarming. The pulse more and more depressed, with frequent intermissions in its motion, the hiccups, sometimes continued for half a quarter of an hour, a great prostration of strength and an appearance altogether discomposed, made us entertain serious apprehensions for the life of our patient.
In the night, the symptoms were equally alarming.
About break of day, on the 17th, the pulse sensibly increased, and a certain flexibility in the stroke of the artery, afforded us the happy presage of an abundant perspiration, which accordingly succeeded in a few hours, and snatched our friend from the gates of death.
He was in a state of convalescence not more than eight days.
This species of fever, occasioned by stagnant waters, in a tropical climate, was treated with diluting draughts and antispasmodics. Ether given frequently, and in small doses, had a tendency to support the strength of the patient, while it moderated the violence of the symptoms.
M. Hoffman, surgeon of the military hospital, visited our patient several times a day. Our chief surgeon also regularly attended him.
M. Bourguellés, the Company's treasurer, persuaded the Commander of our expedition, that the united skill of all the physicians in Europe, was not equal to that of a Malay doctor, in the treatment of such diseases. One of the most able of them was therefore called in. He did not propose to perform the cure by internal remedies; for he gave the patient nothing to take; but after rubbing slightly the skin of different parts of the body, and properly adjusting the lower extremities, he pronounced, with a mysterious air, some words, which he seemed to address to the Supreme Being. Then he conjured, as we were told, the evil spirits, whom those islanders look upon as the authors of diseases. M. Bourguellés was overjoyed to see the doctor operate in his best manner, in order to obtain the desired success. We allowed him to do every thing, from which no bad consequences could result; but it was our business to interrupt his operations, when he was proceeding to souse the patient, with a pail of water, newly drawn from the well. It was but a very little time before the critical sweat, which terminated in his recovery.
The Malay doctor doubtless placed all his science in this experiment; but he did not know that it would have suppressed the critical perspiration, of which the pulse had given us the happy presage.
Our patient was sufficiently recovered on the 19th, no longer to require such assiduous care. We therefore proceeded westward into the country. After having long followed the course of a little river, which runs into the harbour at a short distance from the town, we were returning with a load of fine plants, when, at the approach of night, we met some native fishermen who had been equally fortunate, in their way, and who were proceeding to broil their fish. We had the pleasure of seeing them light up their fire, by means of two pieces of bamboo, rubbed against each other, after being cut in a manner which I shall presently explain.
20th. We employed half of the day in an excursion towards the south; and we made haste to ascend a hill, where we found some young natives setting snares to catch birds. They consisted of hairs formed into nooses and tied to a very long rope, which lay on the ground, and was fastened to a wooden peg driven into the earth.
I supposed that they made use of baits to attract the game; but they told me that they did not, and at the same time confessed, that they caught but few birds.
At the bottoms of the hills, we observed the fine palm which the natives call the sago tree, and which Rumphius has described (vol. i. fig. 13,) under the name of saguerus. From the pedicles of the boughs (regimes) of this tree, when newly cut, a very agreeable liquor oozed, which was received in pieces of bamboo, tied to their extremities. In so hot a climate, this liquor very quickly ferments, and would become acid, if the inhabitants did not add to it some of the wood of the soulamea, which, by the fermentation, is entirely freed from its bitter taste, and preserves the liquor a long time.
One of these palms may yield daily, for above two months in the year, from a gallon and a half to two gallons of this liquor. In order to facilitate its efflux, the incisions of the pedicles are daily renewed.
As the heat of the sun favours the ascension of the sap, one would naturally suppose that the tree would yield a greater quantity of this liquor during the day than during the night. The fact, however, is quite otherwise, for the humidity which is absorbed by the leaves in the night, mixing with the juice, increases its apparent quantity; but that which is obtained during the day contains much more of the saccharine principle, which is to be extracted.
This extract forms a kind of sugar, which the Malays call goula itan (black sugar.) It is commonly met with in small loaves, which retain the shape of the hemispherical vessels, in which the redundant water is evaporated. Its colour approaches to that of chocolate; but it is deeper. On breaking those little loaves, there appear, especially towards the centre, yellowish shining grains, a circumstance which renders it probable, that there would be no great difficulty to bring it to the degree of crystallization, necessary to convert it into sugar of a good quality. Such as it is, the natives scarcely use any other, that which is extracted from the sugar-cane being sold for seven or eight times the price.
From this almost exclusive use of the goula itan, one would be apt to conclude, that the sugar-cane was not produced in the island. Almost all the inhabitants, however, devote small portions of their gardens to this valuable plant; but they content themselves with regaling on its juice, which they express by mastication.
In addition to the agreeable and wholesome liquor afforded by this fine palm, the leaves (or limbs[2]) are adorned, towards the base, with filaments which the natives convert into good cordage. From the form and black colour of those filaments, one would take them, at the first sight, for horse-hair, but they are almost twice as large. The young fruit, prepared with sugar, makes an excellent comfit.
Some fractures in the earth near the bottoms of the hills, disclosed to our view the hard, clear, steatite, which forms their bases.
22d. In an excursion which I made to the south-west, I found many rocks of very friable schistus, of a light grey colour, and near a very hard species of asbestos.
One would be apt to imagine, that, in an island so little removed from the Equator, the preparation of the subjects of natural history would be singularly facilitated by a quick desiccation. The contrary, however, was so much the case, that I was obliged to make great exertions to save the fruits of my botanical harvest from ruin. In fact, the air, in passing over the waters of the ocean, becomes charged with a degree of humidity, which greatly injures such preparations, and the heat of the climate quickly destroys those plants which are most retentive of their juices.
23d. At four in the morning, we directed our course towards the east.
We had several times to cross the beautiful rivulet, known by the name of Vai-Tomon, which enters the sea a little to the eastward of the town. Its banks were covered with a great number of plants, among which are several species of the jussiæa. I observed on the surface of the brook, the species distinguished by the name of jussiæa tenella; and I admired the precaution taken by nature for its preservation, in disposing along the stalk large oval tubercles, filled with air, to make the plant swim. Those vesicles are but little different from the air-bladders, with which most fish are furnished; only in this instance, each vesicle is composed of a great number of smaller ones; because otherwise they would be in danger of being destroyed, by the shocks of the different bodies brought down by the stream.
Notwithstanding the shade of the surrounding trees, the elæcarpus monogynus was covered, even to its lowest branches, with fine flowers, elegantly figured. In those solitary forests, where the sun does not easily penetrate the thick foliage, it is astonishing to observe the vivid colours of several kinds of parasite plants, of the genus of orchydes, mostly cleaving to the trunks of the largest trees. In the least crowded spots, the tree of the aralia class, designated by the name of the cussonia thyrsiflora, adorned the forest with their large palmated leaves.
Among the great number of lizards which were busily pursuing insects, I admired the agility of that called the flying dragon (draco volans, Linn.). During the greatest heat of the day, that pretty animal rapidly darted from branch to branch, by extending two membranes in the form of wings, by means of which it sustains itself for some time in the air. Nature having denied it the muscles necessary for the vibration of this kind of wings, it can only spread them out to counteract the rapidity of its descent. With its hind feet it gives its body an impulse, which not interfering with its descensive motion, sometimes carries it forward a few toises, and to a height nearly equal to that of the place whence it darted.
In my return, I wished to take some branches from the different vegetables which grew in a garden belonging to a native of the island. But the guides who accompanied us, apprized me of the danger to which they believed I would expose myself. Pointing to a little shed, they several times repeated, with an air of respect blended with fear, the word maté, before our interpreter could explain to us, that, by this term, which means a dead person, they meant to signify the ancient possessor of the garden, who lay buried under the little shed, which we saw. The natives are persuaded, that the soul of the deceased possessors wander in the neighbourhood of such places, in order to preserve their products for the present proprietors. They believe, that any other person who should take any part of such products would die within the year; and so generally is this belief diffused, that seldom does any inhabitant allow himself to touch the property of another; so that this maté is a bugbear, which almost always insures the harvest to its legitimate possessor.
The General went on board to review the ship's company, and he procured advances for them all.
25th. My collection was already so numerous, and called for so much care, that I spent almost the whole of the 24th in preparing them; but the next day Citizen Riche and I ascended the river called Baton Ganion, which empties itself into the road on the west side of the town. It is confined in a very deep channel, excavated by its current between the hills, which in many places are of difficult access. We proposed to ascend as far as we could, endeavouring to follow exactly the windings of the banks; but their steepness obliged us to take to the channel itself, where the water was seldom less than eighteen inches in depth.
We had advanced but a few steps, when we met a Dutch sailor, who had made his escape from a large ship loaded with cloves, and which was on the point of sailing for Batavia. The dread of perishing by the contagious malady so fatal to Europeans, who remain there even for a very short time, had made this unhappy man resolve to conceal himself in the woods till the ship should have sailed. We lamented his unfortunate situation; but little did we foresee that the place which he dreaded so much, was to terminate our own peregrinations.
On the banks of this river, there grew in abundance, a new species of begonia, remarkable for the smallness of all its parts.
A beautiful granite, of a fine grain, formed the base of those hills. Quartz, generally very white, was there in some cases tinged by the green steatite, and in others by iron, which gave it the colour of rust. Mica was there disseminated in a very uniform manner, and we found schorl of a black colour, in minute slender fragments.
While we were employed in collecting objects of natural history, our guides took the opportunity of providing themselves with a repast of a species of crab (cancer carinus), with which this little river abounds. Their manner of catching them gave us a good opinion of their ingenuity.
This crab commonly seeks its food in the clearest water, which it slowly traverses, but the instant it is approached, it moves off with extreme rapidity. The islanders, however, managed to catch a great number of them by the eyes. Having tied to the end of a wand a horse hair with a noose, they render themselves masters of the animal by passing this noose over the basis of the spherical part of the eye. When they miss their aim, the crab seldom fails to return, and in the end is almost always taken.
Having early consumed all our provisions, we hoped to find some natives towards the latter part of the day, who would sell us some. It was about three in the afternoon, when we advanced confidently towards a small house, near the bank of the river. But what was our astonishment, when, to every thing we asked for, we received no other answer than tarda? for thus the mistress of this little habitation signified, that she could not furnish us with any of the articles which we desired. Yet we took great pains to assure her, that we would pay her exactly for every thing she gave us. We were the more surprised at this pretended poverty, as the appearance of the natives announced abundance. In the sequel I learned, that those peaceable people have not always reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the Europeans, who govern their island. They thought their safest way was, not to trust to our promises. A few glasses of arrack, however, and some trifling matters which we distributed among them, at last gained us their confidence.
They invited us to sit down under a shed formed by an elongation of the roof of the cabin. Crabs caught in the little river were set before us in abundance. They roasted for us potatoes and yams, and regaled us with the wine of the sago-palm, slightly fermented. This liquor, which, when newly drawn from the tree, is called sagour monda, and aer soguero monda, is much more agreeable than the milk of the cocoa-nut. The girl who was preparing our repast, to a figure and appearance extremely pleasing, joined an air of sincerity which gave charms to the interest which she inspired. Having brought us some fruits, she immediately went and seated herself behind her mother, from whence she occasionally stole a glance at us, to satisfy her curiosity.
This frugal repast was not without its charms. To our reflections on the life of a man who undertakes long voyages, were added the pleasing idea which we had formed of the happiness of those islanders, whose wants nature has supplied with so liberal a hand.
The construction of their houses is adapted to the beauty of the climate; and the lightness of their materials renders it unnecessary to dig their foundations down to the rock.
As the inhabitants never experience severe weather, the walls are constructed in such a manner as to allow a free passage to the air. They consist of a sort of paling, frequently formed of twigs of bamboo, placed very near each other.
The cottage of our host, which occupied a space thirteen feet in length, and about ten in breadth, instead of bamboos, was wattled with the stems of the sago-tree limbs (feuilles), which, though near together, left some intervals, through which the external air had free access into the habitation.
Those stems, though very light, have a great deal of solidity, being covered with a very hard bark. The heart of them consists of a fungous substance, which the inhabitants use instead of corks.
Every part of this habitation was derived from the sago-tree, even to the roof, the top of which being about ten feet in height, was covered with the leaves (folioles) of that valuable tree. They were plaited and fixed to a pole, thus forming rectangles often the whole length of the house, and about eight inches in breadth, and as they overlapped each other, they were impenetrable by the hardest rain.
The two sides of the roof were inclined about forty-five degrees, and a part of it formed at the door a little shed, where the family enjoyed the fresh air, and where also they dressed their victuals; for, as the cottage was not furnished with a chimney, a fire would have rendered it uninhabitable.
It appeared strange that those people, who loved to be at their ease, should sleep on a sort of trellis formed of sticks, two inches asunder. This was but a hard bed, notwithstanding the mats with which it was covered; but it afforded them the pleasure of the fresh air, which circulated freely in the interstices. It was elevated about eighteen inches above the ground, and below it was deposited a part of the household utensils, consisting of three earthen pots of their own manufacture, some square bottles, which they had bought from the Europeans, and spoons which they had formed of the large shells common at Amboyna. Among those shells we recognized different species of the nautilus, many pearl-oysters, and also a kind known by the name of pinna rudis.
We observed besides, under the bed, a pickaxe and a large knife, in the form of a butcher's chopping-knife, called pissau in the Malayan language. They had both those instruments from the Europeans.
As the temperature of the climate renders cloathing unnecessary, their wardrobe contains nothing but what is strictly requisite to conceal the parts which decency forbids them to expose to view.
A pair of drawers, which does not reach lower than the middle of the thigh, or a bit of blue stuff tied round the loins, is the only cloathing of the men who are employed in agriculture.
The dress of the women is naturally more expensive. They wear a kind of shift of the same stuff which descends to the middle of the leg, and is fastened round the loins with a girdle.
Our presents had excited their gratitude. The girl, having disappeared for a few minutes, returned to offer us some odoriferous flowers; but as she wanted a string to form them into nosegays, we had an opportunity of observing the readiness, with which those natives obtain a fibrous substance from the bastard aloe, called agave vivipara. The master of the house ran out and cut a leaf of that plant, and placing it upon his thigh, in order to split it with his large knife, and to free it from the pith, he soon produced a parcel of filaments, as long as the leaf, and as strong as those of our best hemp.
In our return, we met a slave whose decrepitude excited our curiosity. But it was to no purpose that we asked him, how old he was; for he could not satisfy us in that particular, as he knew nothing about it. It appeared strange to us, that a man should not have counted the number of years which he had passed in slavery!!
28th. This day I took an airing in the road, in a canoe with a double outrigger. Some sportsmen, taking the opportunity of this rapid conveyance to the eastward of the town, joined our party. We followed the right bank of the road, at a little distance from the shore. The water was so limpid as to disclose to our view, at the depth of three and four fathoms, the bottom composed of white coral, on which we could perfectly distinguish the species of ray, or thornback, remarkable for its large circular spots of azure blue, as well as several other fishes exhibiting the most brilliant colours. There was a Papow on board, who had the address to catch several of them. Standing in the fore part of the canoe, he darted his spear, consisting of a bamboo pointed with iron, at the fish which was his object. The spear, from its lightness, ascended nearly in the same direction; so that though it had gone to a great depth, our Papow seldom failed to catch it, notwithstanding the way we were making.
When we were about 1,500 toises from the town, we admired the charming situation of the Governor's country house, at the foot of a chain of mountains, which terminate in a gentle declivity near the road.
A cottage of the natives, half way up this slope, encircled with clove and banana trees, added greatly to the beauty of this rural scene.
The depth diminished so much that, though our canoe scarcely drew more than eight inches of water, we were obliged to keep off shore, in order to avoid the rocks.
At the distance of more than 5,100 toises from the town, after passing some fishing boats, we landed on the right bank near a cottage, the owner of which furnished us with as many cocoa-nuts as we wished. Some sailors who were with us, finding their liquor too sweet, mixed with it as much brandy as suited their taste, and we had the satisfaction of observing, that this potation was by no means disagreeable to our host.
After this breakfast, each of us entered on the business which had brought him thither; and we agreed to rendezvous at the place where we landed.
For my own part, I resolved to make an attempt on the mountains to the eastward.
I followed a path very much frequented by the natives, leaving it, however, and penetrating into the forest at every clear interval, which facilitated my entrance.
In several places the earth had rushed down, and exposed to view the hard grey stone, which formed the bases of those mountains. I had also observed the same kind of stone on the shore of the road-stead, along which we had just been walking.
Among the different shrubs which grew on the low lands, I obtained a very fine mixed species of the genus conysa, remarkable for having three principal nerves on each leaf, as in several species of the melastoma. It had also the general appearance of the plants of that genus, to which I should have been inclined to refer it, if I had not seen the flower.
The phalanger of Buffon (didelphis orientalis, Linn.) inhabited the foot of those mountains. I had a near view of several of them as they rapidly flew past me.
When I had gained about 150 toises of perpendicular elevation, I remarked a total change in the nature of the soil. Beds of calcareous stones, perfectly pure and white, crowned those high grounds, which now presented a great extent of very level surface.
There I saw a garden surrounded with a paling of bamboo, and very well cultivated, although at a great distance from any habitation. There appeared to be no possible means of watering it; yet the vegetation was very vigorous, owing to the humidity of the atmosphere in this elevated situation. Large fields were allotted to the culture of the species of pimento, called capsicum grossum, of which the inhabitants of the island consume a great quantity.
A little shed on the west side of the garden afforded us its shelter, and in it my thirsty guides found a supply of good water in long bamboos, which appeared to be designed for some other purpose. This water had been brought from the foot of the mountain, and we made as free with it as if it had been our own.
Although it was very hot, they thought proper to kindle a fire. I was far from foreseeing the intention of those people, who, like the greatest savages, took pleasure in seeing the flames devour the dry plants in the clear spots. Presently one of my guides had the imprudence to set fire to a large bush. The air was then very calm; but a light breeze soon after springing up, drove the flames towards the garden, and I had the mortification to see a part of its paling consumed, without being able to stop the progress of the conflagration.
The manner in which those natives produce fire, well deserves to be described. Their method is not so expeditious as a good flint and steel; but they have the advantage of finding their material almost every where, a piece of bamboo being sufficient.
The following is the way in which they perform it. They split into two equal parts, a bit of bamboo eighteen inches in length. In one of the parts they form a longitudinal slit, and cut the other tapering to about an inch and a half in breadth. They put scrapings of the same wood under the slit, and in the concavity of the largest piece, which they place horizontally, with the convex side uppermost; then introducing the other piece into the middle of the slit; where there is a notch to receive it, and supporting it strongly, they give it the motion of a saw, and in less than a minute the scrapings catch fire.
The canarium commune overtopped all the trees in those elevated forests. I was surprized to see the calcareous rock naked in the midst of those extensive woods, the rotten remains of the trees not having yet covered them with a stratum of vegetative mould; and the rents contained nothing but stones, which time had broken asunder. Those stones resembled vast plates, of the same nature with those which I had many times observed in our Alps. Their numerous cavities seemed to indicate, that the most soluble parts of them had been washed away by the rain.
Having been driven from this spot by the smoke of the spreading conflagration, I proceeded towards the south-west, where I found, in the midst of the woods, many individuals of the nam nam of the Malays (cynometra cauliflora, Linn.), which they raise in their gardens, on account of its fruit, the taste of which approaches to that of a good apple, slightly acid.
Having followed the banks of a rivulet, which discharged its waters near the place where we landed, curiosity induced me to visit a cottage situated near the sea. There I found an old man, who, contrary to the custom of those islanders, wore a long beard. He was boiling, in a large earthen vessel, some shell fish, which he had collected at low water, among the mangrove trees near his habitation. The respectable old man, without being surprized at my visit, immediately invited me to partake of his repast. A long splinter of a sago-tree limb was put into my hand, and I imitated my host in using it to dig out of the shell the fish, which were set before me on a banana-leaf.
The old man's wife soon after joined us, and I should have been extremely surprized at the prodigious inequality of their ages, if I had not learned that those islanders place their happiness in marrying very young girls. Their physiognomy becomes singularly animated whenever they speak of a young woman (in Malay, paranpouang mouda), and, on the other hand, it is truly diverting to observe the frightful grimace which discomposes their whole countenance, when they speak of an old woman, (paranpouang tona).
I endeavoured to make the old man sensible of the extreme insalubrity of his situation so near to mangrove-trees; where the stagnant waters might affect him with violent disorders. But I could not prevail on him to consent to remove his cottage to a more elevated spot. All the answer which he made was, That the sea afforded him his livelihood.
The palm-tree, named nipa, grew in those salt marshes. Its leaves are of great use in covering the cottages.
The hunters had already arrived at the place of rendezvous. We were all extremely thirsty; and we expected to procure cocoa-nuts, with as much facility as when we came to the same place in the morning. But the owner of the garden was absent, and there was no one in the cottage but his wife. It was in vain that we endeavoured to prevail upon her to sell us some cocoa-nuts, for which we would have made one of our guides climb the trees. She gave us to understand that she had not liberty to sell them to us. Besides, not one of our guides would have dared to climb the trees in the absence of the owner, and, if he had not come home, we should have had no cocoa-nuts; for he had placed among the trees a maté, for which our guides showed as much respect as for the one I have already mentioned. This one was also in the form of a little shed, the roof of which might be about twenty-six inches in height, covered with the leaves of the nipa palm, and supported by four posts, about eighteen inches distant from each other.
From the middle of the roof was suspended by a rope a piece of bamboo, about eight inches in length, and covered with half a cocoa-nut. In this bamboo were contained, as I was told, some things which had been the property of the person who was buried under the little shed. I complied with their request not to touch them; for I did not wish to treat their usages with disrespect.
When it was near sun-set, we went on board, in order to return to the town. Our Papow gave us fresh proofs of his dexterity, by transfixing, while we were making considerable way, different kinds of fish.
It was dark when we arrived at the town.
I was employed for most of the 29th, in preparing and describing the objects which I had collected on the preceding day.
One of the fruits of my excursion was the beautiful lizard, called lacerta Amboinensis. I observed that it changed its colour like the chameleon: it was most commonly green, but it frequently assumed a deep brown. This animal is easily taken; for it allows one to approach it near enough to catch it by the extremity of the tail, which is of an extraordinary length.
In the evening I repaired to the beach, in order to examine the marine productions thrown on shore by the waters, and there I remained till night. I saw many fishermen in their canoes near the beach, and who, taking advantage of the darkness, decoyed the fish by torches held near the surface of the water. Pieces of wood, supported by the levers of the double outrigger of the canoe produced a very clear flame. One of the fishermen attended those torches, and carefully diffused their light, which it was easy for him to do, by only letting bits of the flaming wood fall into the water; while others were employed in encircling with their nets, the fishes collected from afar by this brilliant light: we did not hesitate to conclude, from what we observed, that those islanders were very skilful fishermen.
Very early in the morning of the 30th, we set out to survey the other shore of the road. It was necessary for us to go about 3,000 toises by water, and this transit was dangerous in a canoe, whose outriggers were not sufficiently strong to preserve the equilibrium of the vessel, when loaded with so great a weight. We were anxious to visit those places which we had not yet viewed; and we went on board without knowing all the danger of our enterprize. But presently we saw one of the outriggers dip under the water, when one of us leaned a little, and without the greatest care we should have been overset. If this accident had happened, towards the middle of the road, it would have been difficult, on account of the rapidity of the current, even for the most expert swimmer of our number, to have reached the shore. The danger diminished as we approached the place where we wished to land. But we were much astonished at the imprudence of one of the people belonging to the Esperance, who, although he could not swim, and was certain of being drowned, if we had been overset, several times deranged the equilibrium of our little vessel. At last, however, we got on shore.
The coast was there covered with the shrub called scævola lobelia. It delights in such a situation; and I also found it in New Ireland.
At high water, the sea washed the root of the beautiful tree whose denomination, heritiera, recalled the name of one of our most able botanists, Citizen l'Heritier.
In proceeding westward I found, among the shells upon the beach, some lavas very porous, but yet too heavy to swim in water. As I had not observed, in the inland parts of the island, any stones which had been subjected to the action of fire, it seems reasonable to suppose, that those had been brought into their present situation, by the waters, agitated by some volcanic eruption; for earthquakes are frequent in those parts, and the inhabitants still mention with dread, one, among others, which, twelve years before our arrival in their island, had been attended with great devastation: the houses could not be inhabited for several days, and some of them were even overthrown.
In the island of Banda, a little to the eastward of Amboyna, there is an open volcano.
At Karuku a little island, also to the eastward of Amboyna, and at the distance of about 5,100 toises from it, are hot springs which, according to the accounts of several Europeans, will completely coagulate an egg in five minutes. The hot vapour which issues from those waters does not injure the trees which are continually bathed in it; but on the contrary they exhibit proofs of a vigorous vegetation.
This little island of Karuku is principally allotted to the culture of the clove-tree.
I found, in the gardens of the natives some nutmeg-trees, the largest of which did not exceed twenty-two feet in height, the trunk having been about three inches in diameter. They already bore a great quantity of fruit. The nutmeg-tree delights in the shade of large trees; and these enjoyed the shelter of the canarium commune. The same tree affords them its shade, in the island of Banda, which is chiefly applied to their culture by the Dutch.
The Council of the Dutch East India Company, which is established at Batavia, finding the produce of the nutmeg plantations at Banda sufficient for exportation, and wishing, besides, to prevent all contraband trade in that precious commodity, ordered, some years before we arrived in Amboyna, all the nutmeg-trees in that island to be destroyed. This order was executed, and very few of the devoted trees escaped destruction; but a hurricane which happened the same year, deranged all their avaricious calculations. It compleated in Banda, the devastation which the Council had executed at Amboyna.
The same Council afterwards issued orders to endeavour to repair the havock which they had committed at Amboyna. They now wished to re-establish the culture of the nutmeg there. Hence those which we saw near the road, are still very young. Yet we observed several in the gardens of the town, and even opposite to the house of the Commander of the place, which were much larger, having escaped the destructive orders issued by the government at Batavia.
We found the beautiful laurel, called laurus culilaban, which yields, by distillation, an aromatic-oil very much in request. The natives know how to extract this precious oil, and make it an article of commerce.
The largest clove trees which we saw in this excursion, were not above twenty-two feet in height; and their trunks not above eight inches in thickness. The natives are obliged to deliver their produce to the Dutch Company, for about the hundred and fiftieth part of the price for which it is sold in Europe. We saw great quantities of the cloves which the natives had spread on mats, under their sheds, in order to be properly dried before being delivered to the agents of the Company. Those people took special care not to expose them to the rays of the sun, which would have dissipated part of the essential oil of that excellent aromatic.
Being upon the beach, I heard the sound of wind instruments, the harmony of which was sometimes very just, and blended with dissonances by no means displeasing. Those fine and harmonious sounds seemed to come from such a distance, as to make me believe, for some time, that the natives were entertaining themselves with their music, on the other side of the road, and near 5,000 toises from the place where I stood. My ear was much deceived as to the distance; for I was not fifty toises from the instrument. It was a bamboo, at least sixty feet in height, fixed in a vertical position, close to the sea. Between every joint was a hole near an inch and 2-10ths long, and somewhat above half an inch broad. These holes formed so many mouths, which, by the action of the wind emitted agreeable and varied sounds. As the joints of this long bamboo were very numerous, care had been taken to pierce it in different directions; so that from whatever point the wind blew, it always met with some holes. The sound of this instrument more nearly resembles that of the harmonica, than any other to which I can compare it.
The experience which we had had of our canoe, in traversing the road, had given us the hint to prepare it better for our return. Accordingly the outriggers were strengthened, and we proceeded towards the town, without any apprehensions of being drowned.
October 2d. Some hours of this day were employed in visiting the Governor's cabinet of natural history, in which I admired a numerous collection of fine papilios, in perfect preservation. I observed many duplicates of very rare ones, and a large box entirely filled with the beautiful species called papilio agamemnon. This cabinet also contained a great variety of shells, among which were above twenty scalata (turbo scalaris, Linn.)
The Secretary of the Council also possessed great collections of this kind. A taste for procuring objects of natural history is very much diffused among the Dutch, who find it a powerful mean of obtaining them preferment, when they know how to address their acquisitions, properly, to persons possessing influence with the Council at Batavia, or in Europe.
Captain Huon obtained many rare shells from the Secretary of the Council, who gave him, among others, one of the most precious and scarce shells, the glazed or glassy nautilus, (la nautile vitrée) which he has made over by will to the museum of natural history in Paris.
3d. The next day we proceeded towards the entrance of the road, following the shore in the canoe which we commonly made use of.
At the same time, the tide rising with great force, produced a rapid current, particularly towards the middle of the road. Notwithstanding the skill of our paddlers, we would have gained nothing by struggling against such an obstacle. As its force was much diminished towards the shore, we kept as near it as we could, a manœuvre which was much facilitated by the shallowness of our vessel.
I was at some pains in observing the great diminution of the current towards the shore; but I did not expect to find it so considerable. The principal cause appeared to me to be the proximity of the land, which detained the water by a kind of adhesion; whereas, at a greater distance, the sea being much deeper, its upper strata, which form the current, glide with facility upon the lower, and thus the friction is extremely diminished.
While there is a very rapid current towards the middle of the road, there is frequently none close to the shore; and sometimes one in a contrary direction, which ought to be ascribed to the different points of land, protruding into the sea.
In a deep part, bordered by a sandy bottom, we observed some fishing places, formed by a paling of bamboos so close together, that the fish could not escape through it. The entrance was dry at low water; so that the fishes which were thus encircled at high water could not get out when the tide had a little subsided. Besides, the fishes, which commonly prefer the deepest water, advanced towards the farther part of the inclosure, where the depth, even at low water, was still about three feet. This reservoir imprisoned those fishes which were most easily decoyed, and man was not the only fisher who frequented it; for we observed there several species of herons. Our presence drove some of them away, but others still remained, with their long legs deeply immersed in the water, patiently waiting till the fishes came within their reach. The fishing martens are also frequent attendants at those inclosures; some of them were perched upon the bamboos, from whence we saw them dart, from time to time, upon the fishes, which afforded them an abundant supply of food.
We then hastened to a point of land sufficiently advanced into the sea, to induce the Dutch to build a redoubt upon it. But they had abandoned this fortification, as well as another which we observed on the opposite shore nearer to the entrance of the road. We went on board at a small distance from the former redoubt, and steered for the country-house of M. Hoffman, chief surgeon of the hospital, with whom we had formed an acquaintance.
After making a hasty breakfast, at which spices were served up with a profusion, which made us remember we were in the Moluccas, I went to view the vicinity of this habitation, where a marshy situation afforded me, among a great number of other plants, the beautiful species of acanthus, with leaves like those of holly (acanthus ilicifolius, Linn.), and also its variety, with whole leaves.
We then returned towards the redoubt, the form of which, on the side next the sea, is semicircular, being not more than eighty-one toises in length and fifty-one in breadth. The walls are above six feet in height, above three in thickness on the land side, and six towards the road, with embrasures to receive forty pieces of cannon.
While I was on shore, Citizen Riche set our canoe-men a diving, and they frequently brought him up very valuable marine productions. The road of Amboyna abounds with beautiful shells, which are seldom met with elsewhere; the most delicate being protected, in its numerous deep recesses, from the motion of the waters, are often found in perfect preservation.
Our Papow proved to be not only the best diver, but the merriest of all our guides. His humour, which was truly laughable, very much diverted his comrades. He acted several scenes of comedy, which he told us was a favourite amusement among his countrymen. One of those which he repeated the oftenest, because it produced general applause, represented a woman ready to lye in. He entertained us, when we were taking some refreshment, with the finest part of the piece, and he seemed to do great justice to the character.
Some of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands act similar comedies. Captain Cook, in his second voyage, relates, that at the Society Islands, he was present at such an exhibition.
I took the opportunity, while our Papow was in so good a humour, to ask him, What method the people of his country took to separate the umbilical cord? He told me, that they burnt it, above an inch from the body, a mode of operation which has been practised by some surgeons, and that, for this purpose, the Papows employed a well kindled torch.
We re-embarked, in order to proceed farther, always following the same bank. Some of the erythrina corallodendron made themselves remarkable by their fine bright red flowers.
On the steep sides of the hard grey rocks, which formed the neighbouring shore, grew some trees of the vacoua (pandanus odoratissima), which overhanging the sea, gave those places a very picturesque appearance. The large spherical fruit, depending from the extremities of their branches, increased their natural inclination towards the water, the surface of which was always covered with ripe fruit.
These delightful scenes gave us reason to be pleased with our excursion. Having passed some time there, we re-embarked, in order to advance still nearer to the entrance of the road.
A charming situation, in the vicinity of a cottage occupied by a native, induced us to go on shore. The master of the cottage was absent; but we found in this peaceful habitation, a young woman, encircled by her children, whom she was amusing, with a very simple stringed instrument, which she accompanied with her agreeable voice. It was formed of a joint of bamboo, about six inches in length, covered at one end with a piece of parchment, like a drum. Three strings of bark, each of them stretched by a bridge, were fixed to the two extremities of this cylinder, which was placed upon the knees. The two most distant chords sounded an octave, and the intermediate one a fifth with the farthest chord. A circle at each extremity, about 4-10ths of an inch in height, supported other strings, intended to render the instrument more sonorous. These strings were more or less stretched, by a slider, which connected two and two together, and which could be moved at pleasure, through almost whole length, as in our drums. A little slip of bamboo bark, put the chords supported by the bridges into vibration. The accompaniment, although monotonous, seemed infinitely pleasing to our guides, whose ears were accustomed to this species of music.
This habitation was encircled with nutmeg-trees, not far advanced in growth, but already well proportioned; although at Amboyna, their culture is not generally relished. The vicinity formed a beautiful orchard, in which the brilliant flowers of the eugenia malaccensis attracted our admiration; and there we also partook of the agreeably acid fruit of the averrhoa carambola.
The shore was embellished, almost to the edge of the water, by a large plantation of the species of tree called æschinomene grandiflora, which bears the largest flower of all the leguminous plants, and which is commonly of a beautiful white, but also sometimes red. The natives frequently eat it boiled, and in some cases they use it raw, by way of a sallad.
The bark of this tree yields a bitter extract, which they administer as a tonic in fevers.
The day was drawing to a close, and the current set against us. We were therefore obliged to keep close in shore, and it was night before we got back to the town.
4th. As soon as I had disposed, in the most convenient manner, the produce of my last excursions, I went towards the south-east, to a little distance from the town, and I still found plants to add to my collections. At my return, I saw a white negro, of Papow origin. His hair was white, and his skin fair, and marked in some places with red, like those of the red-haired Europeans; but his sight was not weak, as it commonly is in other Albinoes.
This young Papow, was a slave to a Dutchman, and had been but a short time at Amboyna. When I first cast my eyes on him, he was playing on an instrument, which I was surprized to see among those people: it was a jew's harp, cut out of the hardest part of a bamboo, but was not quite so large as the iron ones which we use. As the tongue of it could not be bent, to make it vibrate with the fingers, a little string tied to one of the extremities of the instrument communicated the impulse necessary to agitate the tongue, which then gave the same sound as the iron blades of our jew's harps. I was told that this instrument was very agreeable to the Papows.
5th. We had, for some days, formed the design of visiting the country house belonging to the Commander of the place, situated near the farthest end of the road; and his son favoured us with his company.
We set off before day-break; and it was scarcely five o'clock, before we were seated in our canoes.
We soon arrived under a shed, surrounded with trees, which afforded a salutary protection from the scorching heat; and they were by no means a vain decoration to this delightful retreat, for most of them bore excellent fruit. Among the different anonas which were offered to us, the best was of the species known by the name of anona muricata.
In a little time, we re-embarked, and we were near 5,000 toises from the town, when we passed a point of land, beyond which the road extends itself greatly towards the north.
A fresh breeze from the south-east impeded our progress, and drove the waves against our slight vessel, which proved very inconvenient.
At the same time, a large boat, loaded with water for the Esperance, came out of the creek, into which runs a river which affords that article to the shipping. They bring the water from that great distance, because it is much more easily obtained there than near the town, where, however, the water is also very good.
The current occasioned by the return of the tide opposed our course; but our boatmen redoubled their efforts, and we at last reached the end of that long branch of the road.
We walked for some time under the shade of nutmeg trees, which, as well as the young plants, were much more numerous there, than in any other part of the country which we had hitherto visited.
The Commander's son was here in the midst of his relations. We were near the house of one of his cousins, who was a native of the island; and there we behoved to dine after their manner. Fish, bread, sago, rice, and some fruits, formed our repast. As we were not served with spoons, we were obliged to imitate our host by taking up the victuals with our fingers; but we did not eat the less on that account, nor with a worse appetite.
All of us reconciled ourselves very well to bread made of sago; the fish was strongly seasoned with pimento, but some glasses of the water of the sago-tree diminished the violence of its effects.
While we sat at dinner, we were entertained with music. A kind of spinet was accompanied by a man's voice; a drum served as a base, and a tamtam as a counter-base.
After dinner our host carried us in his canoe about 500 toises towards the east.
There we saw a man employed in preparing a sago-tree. This tree, which was about eighteen inches in thickness, had been cut down a little time before. It was already opened for a part of its length, the whole of which did not exceed forty feet, and it had afforded a great deal of sago. This palm, like the other trees of this genus, preserving nearly the same diameter for its whole length, yields nearly as much sago towards the top of the trunk as towards the root. (Fig. A. Plate xlii, is an exact figure of a young sago tree.) The external part of its trunk is formed of a very hard ligneous shell or cruft, four lines and a half in thickness. The trunk is a large cylinder filled with pith, which is interspersed, through the whole length of the trunk, with ligneous fibres, about the thirteen-thousandth part of an inch in thickness, and often above two lines distant from each other.
They pound the sago after taking it out of the tree; they then put it into bags made of a sort of canvas, furnished by the bases of the limbs of the cocoa-nut tree. On those bags they throw, from time to time, pure water, which carries off the fæculæ (or sediment), while this kind of searce, or strainer, partly retains the woody fibres.
The water replenished with the fæculæ is received into troughs, about three feet in length, formed of the lower part of the limbs of the sago tree. On the end of each trough they fasten a strainer, to retain that part of the fæculæ which has subsided, and the ligneous fibres which have escaped the first washing, swim on the water.
This last strainer required no preparation: it was of the same nature with the other; both being a fibrous contexture, which differs from our stuffs in this, that its component fibres are simply applied, and run parallel to each other throughout the whole length; but some short lateral fibres, which traverse the longitudinal ones, bind them together, and form a firm contexture of the whole.[3]
To clear the fæculæ of the sago of the ligneous fibres which still remain, after having been washed in the sacks or bags, it is again put into troughs, commonly four in number, and arranged; one higher than the other; so that what is not deposited in the first, may be received into the second, and so on.
The texture of the sago tree well deserves examination, and therefore I dissected the trunk of one, in which I observed the conformation of parts common to many other species of palms, as Citizen Desfontaines has so well described, in a memoir on plants with seminal leaves.
6th and 7th. I could not go any great distance from the town on the two following days, on account of the assiduous care necessary to preserve my collections. An intelligent assistant to each naturalist, would have saved that precious time, which should have been employed to a much better purpose.
8th. But this day, light had scarcely appeared, when we were upon the road. In crossing it we directed our course towards its entrance, and very nearly approached a redoubt, about 5,000 toises distant from the town. In that place, the road was at least 3,500 toises in breadth; so that an enemy had nothing more to fear from this battery, than from the first which I have described. This is constructed exactly in the same manner; but it is situated nearer to the entrance of the road.
Near this spot was a hamlet, composed of some cottages, the neatness of which indicated the easy circumstances of the inhabitants. The sea supplied them copiously with food, and most of the houses were encircled with well cultivated gardens.
Some of those islanders raised fowls, and disposed of them at the market in the town. We accepted the invitation of one of those honest people, who insisted on treating us with new laid eggs.
Most of the gardens were surrounded with shrubs, among which we distinguished the jatropha curcas, which being planted close together, formed a good fence. Its seeds have a very agreeable taste, resembling that of the hazle-nut. The natives apprized us, that, when eaten even in a small quantity, they induced great drowsiness. They did not know that the narcotic quality resides in the part, known to the botanists by the name of the embryo; and I had the pleasure of showing them, that, when this part is removed, the kernel may be eaten, without any inconvenience.
Advancing farther into the country, we observed some individuals of the arnotto, bixa orellana, which were cultivated with little care. When we had reached the entrance of the road, we saw at a distance several large canoes striving to make it, and some others which had nearly gained that object.
Our little canoe had arrived at the place of rendezvous, when the boisterous tide raised waves, which did not a little embarrass the steersman; the sea being at the same time very much broken. It was, in short, absolutely necessary for us to wait till it was calmed, before we could go on board, in order to proceed to the other side of the road, which was the most distant excursion we had hitherto made.
For some time we kept along the shore, in order that we might the more easily oppose the tide, and compensate the lee-way, which was occasioned by the force of the current. Near the extremity of the road, a great number of dolphins (delphinus delphis), darting rapidly through the water, passed us at so small a distance, as to make such of us as could not swim, seriously afraid that we should be overset.
We immediately landed near a little habitation, situated near one of the finest parts of the island.
The fishermen on the other side had provided us abundantly with their article, which one of our number had a mind to dress, after the fashion of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, who use the milk of the cocoa-nut as their only sauce. To this dish, so much praised by Captain Cook, he made an addition of pimento. We had the satisfaction to observe, that this composition was extremely agreeable to our hosts, to whom it was unknown; and they cheerfully furnished our guides with every thing necessary to succeed compleatly in preparing it. He who gave directions for the composition of this excellent mess, acquired among the inhabitants the reputation of being a very good cook; and we were much diverted by their perpetually asking us, if he was not the chief cook on board of our ship.
In the vicinity of this cottage, I admired the beauties of the shrub, known by the name of abroma augusta. The hedysarum umbellatum made a distinguished figure, amidst several new species of the same genus. The nutmeg-trees invited to this spot pigeons, of the species columba alba, Linn. The crops of those which we killed were full of nutmegs.
The excessive perspiration, occasioned by the heat of the climate, often induce cutaneous diseases. The bodies of five of our hosts were covered with dry tetters, the scales of which falling off; were immediately succeeded by fresh ones, and appeared the more conspicuous, on account of the colour being a contrast to the copper tint of their skins. This malady frequently invades every part of the body. We also saw some children, who were affected by another cutaneous disorder, from which they did not appear to suffer any pain: almost the whole of their bodies were covered with large warts, not much more than an inch distant from each other.
I seldom visited a cottage at Amboyna, in which I did not find instruments of music; and I met with one here, which I never saw any where else. It was a sort of hautboy, the lower extremity of which terminated in two diverging branches pierced with holes in the same order in each, and thus forming two flutes, both sounding the same notes. The natives love to play in unison, and apply one hand to each branch.
I returned to the town, in a dark night, when the water in the road, presented to my view collections of little bodies, which illuminated large portions of the surface. The water which I took up in the most luminous parts, left on the filtre, through which they were passed, little molecules which differed in no respect from those which I had already examined, before our arrival at the Cape of Good Hope, and in other places, at a great distance from land. We made the land near the town, at the moment of high water, and were obliged to wade, more than 150 toises, through the water, which was so shallow as not to admit our canoes to come near enough the shore to land us. The fishermen were kindling their fires to decoy the fish, which the tide had brought thither in such numbers, that we saw their nets filled with them.
9th and 10th. The two next days were employed in viewing the vicinity of the town. I was surprized to find in so small an island, so many different species of vegetables; but doubtless its proximity to Ceram had enriched it with part of the plants of that extensive island.
In the evening, the Governor gave an entertainment, this having been the anniversary of one of his sons, who was in Europe finishing his education. All the naturalists were invited, and we made our appearance at the Government-house, an hour after sun-set. As the coolness of the atmosphere was not then inconsistent with dancing, the ball had already begun, and several country dances were formed in the great saloon, in which the Governor received us, on our first visit along with General Dentrecasteaux.
This saloon was a kind of gallery, which was decorated with some engravings, and a few very indifferent pictures, placed at a great distance from each other. The walls were only plastered with some coats of lime; although it would not have been difficult to have adorned them with fine wainscotting at a small expence; as the island produces several kinds of wood proper for inlaid work.[4]
Almost all the daughters of the Company's servants were at the ball. The heat of the clime certainly forbade all violent motion; yet we were surprized to see the young ladies dance in a manner so very unfavourable to the display of their graces. They contented themselves with walking slowly, scarcely observing the figures, and their supine air formed a strong contrast with the extreme quickness, which the composer had given to the country dances which they performed.
The orchestra consisted of four negroes, who played on the violin, and another who performed on the bass.
The ball was succeeded by a splendid supper, which was served up in the same apartment.
From the small number present at half an hour past nine, I supposed that the party at supper would not be numerous; but the greater part of the guests, not caring for the dance, did not come till about ten at night.
Gaiety prevailed at this entertainment, which lasted a good part of the night; and the dancing was resumed, and continued till sun-rise.
We were surprized that we had not the company of M. Strampfer, one of the ministers of the Protestant persuasion, who had received us so kindly; but we soon learned that he had lately incurred the displeasure of the Governor, because forsooth, after having diligently attended to the education of that gentleman's children, for several years, the poor man had requested payment! It might well be supposed, that the boasted honour of having educated the children of the Governor, was a compensation not quite sufficient for a man who had a family of his own; but he could obtain nothing more!!
11th. I employed a part of this day, in surveying the beauties of several gardens, and among the plants which adorned them, I observed the Chinese box-tree, murraya exotica, which formed very fine avenues, also the mixed carmanthine, justitia variegata, and the variegated turnsole, croton variegatum, so remarkable for the beauty of their flowers and their foliage.
The lawsonia inermis, called by the natives, bounguia laca, is employed as on the continent of Asia, to stain certain parts of the body, and particularly the extremities of the fingers. The Chinese make the most use of this article.
Soon afterwards I came to a cottage, surrounded with a great number of cocoa-nuts, suspended from the leaves of the roof, and from the adjoining trees. The owner of this cabin, pointing to his numerous family, told me that he was preparing to make a large plantation of cocoa-nut trees. Most of those nuts had germinated, and he said that the plants must be about eighteen inches in height, before they were committed to the earth, assuring me that, but for this precaution, many of them would rot, without springing up.
As the moment of our departure from Amboyna approached, I sent on board the collections, which I had made in that charming island, and on the 13th I followed them in person.
14th. The express orders, which had been issued the evening before, for every one belonging to the expedition to repair on board the frigates, made us suppose that every thing was ready for our departure, and that nothing but contrary winds could prevent us from sailing. A part, however, of the water, which had been consumed while we lay at anchor, still remained to be replaced; and, as this business was not finished till the afternoon, we could not take our departure till the next day.
The people belonging to the ships were very well satisfied with this relaxation. They had enjoyed as much leisure as they could desire, and slaves had even been employed to bring on board our complement of wood and water, in the large shallops which they call yacou.
Our ship had been caulked, and having been surveyed with scrupulous attention, was found to be generally in good condition.
The island of Amboyna, called Ambon by the natives, was then the Dutch government in India, which ranked next to the general one of Batavia.
The latitude of the place of the observatory, towards the western extremity of the town, was found to be 3° 41′ 40″ S. and its longitude 126° 9′ E.
The variation of the compass there, was 1° 13′ 20″ W.
A flat dipping needle gave 3° of inclination.
Although the heat was oppressive, the thermometer varied regularly every day, only from 22° to 25°.
The barometer kept constantly at 28 inches two lines, its variation not exceeding one line.
At the place where we lay at anchor, the time of high water, at the full and change of the moon, was at half an hour past twelve at noon, and the water rose about eight feet. The tides take place twice a day.
The road of Amboyna forms a channel about 10,200 toises in length, and its mean breadth is about 3,400 toises. In many places, towards the sides, there is good anchorage, notwithstanding that the bottom, in some situations, is coral. About the middle, the depth is too great for anchoring.
The fort, which is called Victory Fort, is built with bricks, and the Governor and some of the members of the council reside in it. It was then falling into ruin, and from every gun which was fired, it sustained some damage.
The garrison was composed of about two hundred men; the greater part of them natives of the island; the rest were European soldiers in the Company's service, and a weak detachment of the regiment of Wirtemberg.
Most of the European soldiers were tormented with the desire of revisiting their native country; but none of them had yet seen the happy moment of return. Some who had been amused with this vain hope, for many years, were a source of dejection to the rest.
The small number of soldiers who survive any long residence in India, renders those who have passed some years there, still more valuable; and hence the Dutch East India Company seldom fulfil their promise to allow the men, whose time is expired, to return to Europe. Every method is tried, in order to induce them to make a fresh engagement; and they who carefully avoid every stipulation, which can tend to prolong their confinement in the island, do not the sooner obtain their liberty. I have met some of those unhappy men who had been detained in the island more than twenty years; although, in conformity with the terms of their agreement, they ought to have been then free.
The Island of Amboyna is divided into several districts, which in many places, form so many villages, called nygri. The command of each nygri is conferred on a native, who is decorated with the title of orancaye. This man, to whom the police of his little canton is entrusted, is himself altogether subordinate to the Dutch government, to whom all weighty cases are referred. The Dutch commonly chuse for orancayes, natives who profess the Protestant religion, preferring the ancient chiefs, or their nearest relations, and above all those who are richest.
Each of those orancayes has the government of about one hundred natives. The Dutch Company, when they invest them with their authority, present them with a silver-hilted sword. Those chiefs are cloathed in the European stile, all in black, and they wear three-cocked hats, very much pointed and depressed. Of this dress of ceremony, shoes form a part, which they wear when they are obliged to appear in public, or in the presence of their Dutch superiors.
The title orancaye is compounded of two Malayan words oran kaya, the literal translation of which is, a rich man.
The dignity of orancaye, is by no means an empty title: it gives those petty chiefs the means of making their fortune, which they seldom fail to do, although very vexatiously to those who are subjected to them; for when raising contributions on the poor Amboynians, on account of the agents of the Company, they take care not to neglect their own interests. It nevertheless happens sometimes, that their fortunes decline faster than they increased, when the agents of the Company find the means of turning the avarice of the orancayes to their own advantage.
The inhabitants of Amboyna speak the Malayan language, which is very soft. Its analogy with the language spoken in the South Sea Islands, has induced me to present the reader, at the end of the second volume, with a very copious vocabulary, which I collected at Amboyna and in the island of Java, where I remained a long time, at the close of this expedition.
The use of betel has been established among those people, time immemorial. They take some young leaves of the pepper tree called piper striboa, in Malay siri, and having covered them with a little very fine lime, made of burnt shells, and newly flaked, they chew them with the arec-nut. Some of them always continue this amusement, except when they are eating or sleeping. I was much surprized that, notwithstanding their incessant use of lime, those people had in general very sound teeth. They become, however, of a blackish colour, which penetrates the enamel without diminishing its polish. They are in the practice of cleaning them frequently with a powder which is not very far fetched; for it consists merely of a calcareous stone of moderate hardness, which they pound between two pieces of hard grey stone. They also use a small quantity of this last stone, to rub the external part of their incisive teeth.
Those people, not content with chewing the betel, import from Malacca an extract of a bitter plant, known by the name of gamber, which they use for mastication.
Mountains of moderate elevation cover Amboyna, and principally the eastern part of that island.
The coffee which they gather appeared to us inferior to that of the Isles of France and of the Re-union. Besides, the Dutch settled in the Moluccas, are very careless in its preparation. Their domestics are in the practice of subjecting it to a degree of torrefaction, which almost reduces it to a cinder, in order that they may have the less trouble in pounding it, with the wooden pestles and mortars, which are the only machines they use for this purpose.
The greater part of the marshy grounds are allotted to the cultivation of the sago tree, which furnishes the inhabitants with wholesome food. It forms an article of their sea-stores for long voyages, as does also the Canary almond, which they dry for preservation. That almond has likewise a very agreeable taste when newly gathered.
The rice consumed at Amboyna is not the produce of that island. Yet it would succeed well, on most of the low lands, where the water which issues from the bases of the mountains, presents very convenient situations for its culture. But the Dutch East India Company has prohibited the application of the land to this article; because the purchase of it drains from the island the specie paid by the Company for cloves. Thus those monopolists prevent the accumulation of ready money, and procure, at a very moderate rate, the produce of the labour of the inhabitants. Besides, as rice is much used by persons in tolerable circumstances, it is found to be a branch of lucrative commerce to the Company's agents, who import it chiefly from the island of Java.
By such means that Government, exclusively consulting its own interests, cramps the industry of the natives, by obliging them to abandon, so to speak, every sort of cultivation, except those of cloves and nutmegs.
The Dutch also take care to limit the cultivation of spices, in order that the quantity produced may not much exceed the ordinary demand. Those measures, though destructive of all activity, are, however, well suited to the supine disposition of those people.
Many farinaceous roots, and a variety of trees, afford them abundant supplies of food, almost without cultivation; as if nature had thus intended to compensate man, for the inactivity to which she seems to have condemned him, in so sultry a climate.
Engrafting would doubtless contribute to improve the various fruits produced in this island; but no person, even among the Europeans, has yet succeeded in that experiment; for they have always allowed the joint to dry, before the circulation of the sap was fairly established between the stock and the scion. It would, however, have been easy to prevent that accident by keeping the part in a suitable state of moisture, till the junction was fairly formed.
The European kinds of pulse are but little adapted to the heat of the climate.
A very small banana, called pisang radja, is looked upon as the best kind. Next to the litchi and the mango, it appeared to me the best fruit in Amboyna. They have several species of the litchi, among which ought to be reckoned the nephelium lappaceum, or the ramb-outan of the Malays. Those celebrated botanists, Linnæus, Jussieu and Gærtner, were mistaken in the classification of that genus; doubtless, because they had not an opportunity of examining its parts of fructification, in a state of perfection.
Linnæus has classed it among the euphorbia, Jussieu among the composites, and Gærtner among the amentaceæ; but it evidently belongs to the tribe of soap-berry trees (Sapindus saponaria, Linn.).
The same restrictive system, which we experienced at the Cape of Good Hope, also prevails at Amboyna. In order to prevent any augmentation in the price of commodities, the Company undertook to furnish us with provisions; and gave the natives a trifling price, for articles which they sold to us at a very great advance.
The Dutch have transformed a custom still more pernicious into a law, which authorizes the chiefs employed by the Company to take from the natives, without any payment, the provisions necessary for their daily consumption. Nothing can be imagined more oppressive than this arbitrary contribution. The most laborious man, like the most lazy, is almost sure of being stripped of every thing but a scanty subsistence. Hence most of the natives content themselves with the easiest species of cultivation, passing in idleness that time which, under a different government, they might have employed in placing themselves in easy circumstances.
The fiscal, who superintends the police, compleats the oppression of the inhabitants. That officer has the power of imposing, for his own benefit, pecuniary fines, which he fixes according to the measure of his own rapacity, and the circumstances of the natives, whom he is often pleased to find guilty, when they have not committed the slightest offence!! A Mr. M'Kay, however, then exercised that office in a manner very different from that of most of his predecessors. The inhabitants very much extolled his humanity, which was the more praise-worthy, as he had it in his power to do them every possible mischief with impunity. That brave man told us, that he preferred mediocrity of fortune to riches obtained by such means. Mr. M'Kay, when explaining to us one day the prerogatives of his office, informed us that some of our sailors had caused a riot, at an unseasonable hour of the night, in the house of a very rich Chinese, who sold arrack and other spirituous liquors; adding, with much frankness, that the powers with which he was invested entitled him to extort a large sum from the Chinese, by way of fine, and to convert it to his own use, Others, said he, would not have scrupled to have availed themselves of such an opportunity; but I never had occasion to repent of my moderation.
The clove is the principal article of produce at Amboyna, and several little islands to the eastward of it, where it succeeds extremely well. The Dutch have placed residents there, to prevent the exportation of that precious commodity.
The nature of the soil of Banda appeared to me more favourable to the cultivation of nutmegs than that of Amboyna; for it is generally acknowledged that the nutmegs of the latter island are inferior to those of the former.
Nutmeg-trees and clove-trees were formerly diffused over the islands of Ternate, Tidor, Makian, &c. in much greater abundance than in Amboyna and Banda; but the Dutch, determined to appropriate to themselves the exclusive benefit of those precious trees, obliged the chiefs of the first-mentioned islands to destroy the plantations of them. Their agents, who reside there, make very rigorous visitations, in order to see this order executed; and those articles are only cultivated at Amboyna, and the other islands immediately dependent on the Company, where they can exercise continual vigilance. This inquisition, imposed by Dutch avarice, is very much frustrated by the birds, which convey to the neighbouring islands the seeds of the spice-trees from those where they are cultivated. This circumstance made the Company resolve to settle residents in those islands, whose principal business it is, continually to search for and destroy all the young spice-trees they can meet with. But it also often happens that the seeds are dropped in situations so precipitous, as to escape the most active vigilance.
The slaves introduced into the Moluccas, are chiefly brought from Macassar and Ceram. The women of Macassar are generally of a middling stature, and have agreeable features. Their hair is not crisped; and their complexion, though still more yellow than that of European women labouring under the chlorosis, yet procures them, from the natives of the Moluccas, the name of white women, paranpouang pouti.
Before the Dutch established the slave-trade, the islanders of Ceram were in the barbarous practice of devouring their prisoners of war. It is melancholy to learn that they have abandoned that atrocious custom, only because they turn their captives to better account by selling them. If this change of system has been attended with an apparent good, it must also give rise to more frequent wars. Man must indeed have sunk to extreme degradation, when the introduction of slavery becomes instrumental to his civilization! This, however, may be said of a people who were formerly cannibals.
The Dutch settled in the Moluccas, speak the Malayan language to their slaves; taking special care not to teach them their own mother-tongue, lest the slaves should understand their conversation among themselves.
As soon as the Dutch had secured the exclusive commerce of the Moluccas, they endeavoured to ascertain the population of those islands, and, by exaggeration in that particular, in order to convey a great idea of the subjugated country, they stated it at 150,000 souls, which, according to universal opinion, and the most recent estimates, is double the number of people in the Moluccas.
The quantity of cloves annually produced in that settlement is about 2,000 packages, each 534 pounds avoirdupois. The crop of two years forms the cargoes of three ships, two of which are sent in one year, and the third in the year following. The quantity of cloves and nutmegs exported sometimes exceeds the consumption; and, in that case, it is well known that the Dutch East India Company burn the overplus, in order to keep those commodities always at the same price.
In spite of all their anxiety to monopolize the spice trade, it is computed that one-fiftieth part of the crop is annually smuggled. As the small salaries of the Company's agents do not allow them to make their fortunes rapidly, several of them have recourse to means of improving their situation, which, though certainly dangerous, are easily put in practice. And, notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Company, their servants succeed in depriving them of a small part of the spices.
It is not long since the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Banda were deposed and sent to Batavia, for having converted to their own uses part of the produce of that island. But those abuses are come to such a pitch, that this example will only serve to make others conduct their operations with more address, in order to prevent a discovery.
That contraband trade is more particularly carried on by means of the canoes of Ceram, in the vicinity of which the spice islands are situated; and the spices thus procured are bartered, with English ships, for Indian silks, opium, firearms, gunpowder, lead, hardware and tin, which the inhabitants of Ceram exceedingly value, converting it into bracelets, ear-rings, &c. Some of those articles are again sold at Amboyna.
The Dutch have two factories at Ceram, one of them at its north-west extremity, and the other at Savay. General Bougainville had been misinformed when he said, that they had been expelled from this last post. They have lost, it is true, very extensive possessions in other parts of that large island; but they still retain their establishment at Savay.
The resident who entertained General Bougainville, during his stay at Bourou, had been dead several years. At Amboyna, we had the pleasure of seeing his widow, who has preserved an agreeable remembrance of that French gentleman. Such is her taste for our language, that she has employed all the means in her power, at that distance from Europe, to have her children instructed in it.
The Chinese are almost the only strangers who are permitted to reside at Amboyna; but they are obliged to submit to naturalization, and thus can never return to their own country. They are permitted to trade among the Moluccas; but it is only at Macassar and Batavia, where vessels from China are permitted to enter, that they can procure Chinese commodities. They are all of a commercial turn; and some of them have purchased, at a very high price, the exclusive privilege of dealing in certain articles; and hence they sell them at exorbitant rates. They practise all sorts of expedients to get money, and hence their reputation often suffers exceedingly; but, on that head, they seem to have lost all sensibility. Some Jews, whom the Company permit to reside in the island, enter into commercial competitions with those Chinese; but the Israelites are no matches for them, the Chinese having greatly the advantage, in point of numbers and connections.
The collector of the Company's revenue is a Chinese, who is likewise charged with preserving the police among his countrymen established in the island, and takes cognizance of such cases as are not sufficiently important to be reserved for the decision of the government of Amboyna. We one day paid him a visit, in company with one of the ministers of the Protestant persuasion; and he entertained us with excellent tea. The table was covered with a great variety of well-preserved comfits: one of the best was the young nut of the fruit of the sago-palm. That chief, who is called the Chinese Captain, showed us, with an air of satisfaction, his armorial escutcheons, variegated with a great number of colours. Those ornaments were profusely displayed in the apartment where he received us, and his bed was hung round with them.
His house, like those of his countrymen, was in no respect similar to those of the natives. The Chinese build much more solidly. Their houses are constructed like those of the Europeans, with some difference in the distribution of the apartments. The body of the building is of wood, and the walls of clay, thickly rough-cast, and afterwards covered with several coats of lime.
The frequency of earthquakes and hurricanes makes the inhabitants prefer wooden houses; and scarcely any other than the public buildings are of stone. It almost always happens, that in those moments of consternation the inhabitants are obliged to quit their habitations, and to betake themselves to little cabins very slightly constructed, where they are much more safe than in their houses, which the tempests and the earthquakes sometimes overturn.
We enjoyed excellent weather at Amboyna; the winds were never violent, and those which we had from the south-east and north-west, were very weak.
The market for the different fruits of the country is in the Chinese quarter. The Malays, like the Arabians, call it by the name of bazar. The dealers assemble there, chiefly in the evening, and remain till nine at night, each of them being lighted with one or two torches, composed of the resin called dammer, furnished by a species of cycas, of the same name: (dammara alba, Rumph. Amb. vol. ii. chap. xii, tab. 57.) They inclose this resin in sago tree leaves, without any central wick. It burns with very little smoke; but care must be taken to remove the covering, as it is reduced into a cinder, and to trim it level with the resin. Those people are lighted at a very small expence; for a dammer torch, eight inches in length, and about an inch and a quarter in thickness, costs them not one-sixtieth of a penny sterling, and yields a very clear light for three hours. Their cottages are lighted with the same resin.
Besides the fruit, there are some other eatables sold in that Bazar. In a sultry climate, and an extremely humid atmosphere, fish would soon putrefy, if it was not quickly dried; and hence more dried than fresh fish is sold in that market. When the fish is prepared with the smoke of a small fire, its taste is preferred by the inhabitants to that of fresh fish.
The Molucca islands, after having been long under the dominion of the Arabians, the Moors, and the Malays, came at last under that of the Europeans. The Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Dutch, contended for that dominion, and established their factories and their forts in those lands. The Dutch finally prevailed, and have for many years enjoyed the monopoly of their spices. Those different sovereigns have produced such a change in the manners of the natives of Amboyna, that it is now difficult to discover any traces of their original character. The Porteguese introduced among those people the catholic religion. The Dutch have used their utmost efforts to render them Protestants, thinking that one of the most likely means to subjugate them. Hence they have a great number of schools, where the children of the natives are instructed in that religion, and in reading and writing Malayan. Service is performed in that language, in a church appropriated to the use of the natives; and in Dutch in another church, attended by the Europeans. There are two ministers belonging to each.
The Chinese, as may well be supposed, have a pagoda in this place.
Some natives, who still adhere to the religion introduced by the Arabs and the Moors, are provided with a mosque. The greatest number of true believers are settled on the other side of the road, to the northward of the town. The Dutch have succeeded much better in making proselytes to their religion, in the vicinity of their principal settlement. The iron rod, with which they crush those miserable people, has reduced them so nearly to the condition of slavery, that it will not excite surprize, if we observe in them some of the vices which originate in that state of human degradation.
Although those people be habituated to resign almost every thing they possess to the Europeans, there is one article which they are not disposed to resign to them. Jealousy reigns among them to an extreme, which makes any indiscreet proposal to their women very dangerous. In such a case no dread of punishment would prevent them from executing their vengeance.
The Dutch men preserve their European clothes as a sort of ceremonial dress; but they have all vests with sleeves, in order that they may conveniently throw off their coats, when the master of the house, to which they happen to be invited, sets them the example. On such occasions, those who wear wigs, lay them aside, and put on large caps of very fine linen. The European women over a petticoat, which falls very low, wear a gown made like a shirt, as long as the petticoat, and which being divided in the fore part, is kept close to the body by a girdle. Their hair is formed into a spiral behind the head, and fattened with two large pins, which cross each other. Such is the ordinary dress of the European ladies. The native women, in good circumstances, who live in the town, wear dresses of the same form, but commonly black: by the country women, blue is preferred to every other colour.
The female slaves wear a sort of shift, by way of a gown; but it is not divided before, like that of the free women.
The free men dress their hair with a bent comb. The slaves tie it up with a handkerchief.
The Chinese, it is well known, received spices from the Moluccas many ages before those islands were seized upon by the Europeans. The Greeks and Romans were also acquainted with them; and they were long objects of research with the navigators who first penetrated into the oriental seas.
Those precious aromatics were then confined to a small number of islands; but have been since transplanted into very distant countries, where they succeed perfectly well. We have grounds to hope, that our colony of Cayenne, will one day rival the Moluccas, and by producing a much greater quantity of spices, will diminish their price, and bring them into more general use. Those articles are also successfully cultivated in the isles of France and Bourbon.
We took on board the Recherche two hinds and a stag, with a design to enrich New Holland with that beautiful species of quadrupeds.
We provided a good stock of fowls, common ducks, and Senegal ducks, (oies de Guinée.)
The cazoard was not included among our live stock. That bird, though kept in the poultry-yards at Amboyna, is not very easily procured, not being a native of that island, but imported from the great islands to the eastward. It does not well agree with long voyages, and besides its flesh is black, tough and dry. In proportion to the room, which it would have occupied on board, that bird would have afforded us much less food than the poultry which we had already provided; for except its thighs which are muscular, being intended by nature for running, the rest of its body is of a very moderate size, in proportion to its height.
Our roots were chiefly potatoes and yams.
The beautiful leaves of the banana tree, and different kinds of melons adorned the stern of our ship.
We bought a good number of hogs and goats.
We took much care of our cow; although her milk was exhausted; for it would have been impossible to have procured another. The species of buffalo common in India, is indeed a sort of domestic animal at Amboyna; but the female of that quadruped gives little milk, and being almost untameable, would have been very troublesome, not to say dangerous, on board.
Our butcher, whose business it was to take care of the quadrupeds, could procure them little food but what was hard and dry, consisting, in a great measure, of the anthistiria ciliata; but happily, before we sailed, he was enabled to provide the large stocks of banana trees which, for a long time, afforded those animals succulent food. As they were allowed but little water, the abundant juice of those plants were as serviceable to them.
The flour which we procured at Amboyna, was but of a middling quality, and the quantity with which they could furnish us, was but about 11,000lbs avoirdupois. This scarcity, whether real or pretended, obliged us to purchase it at an exorbitant price.
We found at Amboyna but few articles of European provision. The Lieutenant-Governor, however, had a considerable quantity of Hamburgh beef, which is in great request among navigators. That officer very willingly let our Commander have a part of it; but when we had got out to sea, we discovered that his servants had dishonestly withheld the most juicy pieces of the beef, and had substituted the same weight of the bony and tendinous parts.
The young shoots of the bamboo, cut into slices, and preserved in vinegar, are excellent pickles, in a long voyage, and we provided abundance of them. Those young shoots are generally very tender, if care be taken to gather them in proper time. They are sold in the market as pulse, for which they are a good substitute. They are often above three feet in length, and considerably more than an inch in thickness.
We also furnished ourselves with cloves and nutmegs, preserved in sugar. The rind of the nutmeg is the only part fit for this purpose; and unfortunately the blundering confectioners had chosen such as were too far advanced, as were also the cloves, which, having reached the size of middling olives, had acquired too much of the aromatic flavour to form an agreeable preserve. A man must have an Indian palace, who wishes to enjoy those delicacies. I may say the same thing of the preserved ginger, with which we were provided.
Our store of sago was by far too great; for we used only a small part of it. Our people never could reconcile themselves to that food, wholesome as it was; and, notwithstanding all the arguments of our chief surgeon, they, in some months, conceived such an aversion to it, as to give the preference to salted provisions of the worst quality.
We had but few hogsheads of wine remaining, which were fit for use. The only spirituous liquor we could procure was arrack, of which we purchased several hogsheads. Some navigators are too lavish in their praises of that liquor, which is not even so good as middling French brandy.
- ↑ The great disproportion of the claws to the body, and to one another, is more probably a distinctive characteristic of this curious species of crab. I have seen many thousands of them; but never an individual in which this disproportion did not exist. Places situated to leeward of the muddy salt-flats, in which those creatures breed, are justly reckoned extremely insalubrious.—Translator.
- ↑ The French word is feuilles. But the English use the word limb, for the shoots of the cocoa-nut tree, the cabbage tree and other species of palm; and very properly: they are too large to be called leaves, and, being deciduous, cannot be called branches, in the ordinary sense of that term.—Translator.
- ↑ The reader will observe, that the kind of searce here described, is merely a natural production, which is not over plainly intimated by the Author. They are commonly called by the English cocoa-nut strainers. They resemble fragments of very coarse brown linen, but are not so pliable. If I rightly remember, they are from two to three feet in length, and where broadest, which is about the middle, from a foot to about fifteen inches in breadth.—Translator.
- ↑ The number of scorpions and solopendræ (or forty-legs) before observed to have been brought on board with the wood taken in at Carteret harbour, might have suggested to the Author, that wainscotting only serves as an asylum to those and other vile insects, which swarm in most tropical countries. For the same reason, a great number of prints and pictures are inconvenient, and it is scarcely possible to preserve paper from the attacks and the excrements of insects. Plain painting and white-washing are almost the only decorations, which the insides of houses conveniently admit in those climates; as the Author would have discovered, if he had continued to reside in them.—Translator.