Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
coats). There is only one well of good water on the islands, situated close to the landing-
place, to which all the inhabitants come for drinking water. The men are good boat-builders,
and they make a regular trade of it and seem to be very well off.
After five days at Kaióa we continued our journey, and soon got among the narrow straits
and islands which lead down to the town of Batchian. In the evening we stayed at a settle-
ment of Galéla men. These are natives of a district in the extreme north of Gilolo, and are
great wanderers over this part of the Archipelago. They build large and roomy praus with
outriggers, and settle on any coast or island they take a fancy for. They hunt deer and wild
pig, drying the meat; they catch turtle and tripang; they cut down the forest and plant rice or
maize, and are altogether remarkably energetic and industrious. They are very fine people,
of light complexion, tall, and with Papuan features, coming nearer to the drawings and de-
scriptions of the true Polynesians of Tahiti and Owyhee than any I have seen.
During this voyage I had several times had an opportunity of seeing my men get fire by
friction. A sharp-edged piece of bamboo is rubbed across the convex surface of another
piece, on which a small notch is first cut. The rubbing is slow at first and gradually quicker,
till it becomes very rapid, and the fine powder rubbed off ignites and falls through the hole
which the rubbing has cut in the bamboo. This is done with great quickness and certainty.
The Ternate people use bamboo in another way. They strike its flinty surface with a bit of
broken china, and produce a spark, which they catch in some kind of tinder.
On the evening of October 21st we reached our destination, having been twelve days on
the voyage. It had been fine weather all the time, and, although very hot, I had enjoyed my-
self exceedingly, and had besides obtained some experience in boat work among islands and
coral reefs, which enabled me afterwards to undertake much longer voyages of the same
kind. The village or town of Batchian is situated at the head of a wide and deep bay, where a
low isthmus connects the northern and southern mountainous parts of the island. To the
south is a fine range of mountains, and I had noticed at several of our landing-places that the
geological formation of the island was very different from those around it. Whenever rock
was visible it was either sandstone in thin layers, dipping south, or a pebbly conglomerate.
Sometimes there was a little coralline limestone, but no volcanic rocks. The forest had a
dense luxuriance and loftiness seldom found on the dry and porous lavas and raised coral
reefs of Ternate and Gilolo; and hoping for a corresponding richness in the birds and insects,
it was with much satisfaction and with considerable expectation that I began my explora-
tions in the hitherto unknown island of Batchian.
