Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
two years away, but were full of people, with several black Papuans on board. At 6
P.M.
we
passed Wangi-wangi, low but not flat, inhabited and subject to Boutong. We had now fairly
entered the Molucca Sea. After dark it was a beautiful sight to look down on our rudders,
from which rushed eddying streams of phosphoric light gemmed with whirling sparks of
fire. It resembled (more nearly than anything else to which I can compare it) one of the large
irregular nebulous star-clusters seen through a good telescope, with the additional attraction
of ever-changing form and dancing motion.
Dec
. 23
d
.—Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening barely visible behind us. The
Goram prau about a mile south of us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true
course during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction
of which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night. In these seas they are never (in
fine weather) more than two days without seeing land. Of course adverse winds or currents
sometimes carry them away, but they soon fall in with some island, and there are always
some old sailors on board who know it, and thence take a new course. Last night a shark
about five feet long was caught, and this morning it was cut up and cooked. In the afternoon
they got another, and I had a little fried, and found it firm and dry, but very palatable. In the
evening the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, which, as darkness came on, assumed a fear-
fully black appearance. According to custom, when strong wind or rain is expected, our
large sails were furled, and with their yards let down on deck, and a small square foresail
alone kept up. The great mat sails are most awkward things to manage in rough weather.
The yards which support them are seventy feet long, and of course very heavy; and the only
way to furl them being to roll up the sail on the boom, it is a very dangerous thing to have
them standing when overtaken by a squall. Our crew, though numerous enough for a vessel
of 700 instead of one of 70 tons, have it very much their own way, and there seems to be
seldom more than a dozen at work at a time. When anything important is to be done,
however, all start up willingly enough, but then all think themselves at liberty to give their
opinion, and half a dozen voices are heard giving orders, and there is such a shrieking and
confusion that it seems wonderful anything gets done at all.
Considering we have fifty men of several tribes and tongues on board, wild, half-savage
looking fellows, and few of them feeling any of the restraints of morality or education, we
get on wonderfully well. There is no fighting or quarrelling, as there would certainly be
among the same number of Europeans with as little restraint upon their actions, and there is
scarcely any of that noise and excitement which might be expected. In fine weather the
greater part of them are quietly enjoying themselves—some are sleeping under the shadow
of the sails; others, in little groups of three or four, are talking or chewing betel; one is mak-
