Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
assortment of articles, always including gongs, crockery, and cloth. They told me that some
of the tribes kill the old men and women when they can no longer work, but I saw many
very old and decrepit people, who seemed pretty well attended to. No doubt all who have
much intercourse with the Bugis and Ceramese traders gradually lose many of their native
customs, especially as these people often settle in their villages and marry native women.
The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were fifteen large
praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats from Ceram, Goram, and Ké. The
Macassar cargoes are worth about 1,000
l
. each, and the other boats take away perhaps about
3,000
l
. worth, so that the whole exports may be estimated at 18,000
l
. per annum. The largest
and most bulky items are pearl-shell and tripang, or 'bêche-de-mer,' with smaller quantities
of tortoise-shell, edible birds' nests, pearls, ornamental woods, timber, and Birds of
Paradise. These are purchased with a variety of goods. Of arrack, about equal in strength to
ordinary West India rum, 3,000 boxes, each containing fifteen half-gallon bottles, are con-
sumed annually. Native cloth from Celebes is much esteemed for its durability, and large
quantities are sold, as well as white English calico and American unbleached cottons, com-
mon crockery, coarse cutlery, muskets, gunpowder, gongs, small brass cannon, and ele-
phants' tusks. These three last articles constitute the wealth of the Aru people, with which
they pay for their wives, or which they hoard up as 'real property.' Tobacco is in immense
demand for chewing, and it must be very strong, or an Aru man will not look at it. Knowing
how little these people generally work, the mass of produce obtained annually shows that
the islands must be pretty thickly inhabited, especially along the coasts, as nine-tenths of the
whole are marine productions.
It was on the 2d of July that we left Aru, followed by all the Macassar praus, fifteen in
number, who had agreed to sail in company. We passed south of Banda, and then steered
due west, not seeing land for three days, till we sighted some low islands west of Bouton.
We had a strong and steady south-east wind day and night, which carried us on at about five
knots an hour, where a clipper ship would have made twelve. The sky was continually
cloudy, dark, and threatening, with occasional drizzling showers, till we were west of
Bouru, when it cleared up and we enjoyed the bright sunny skies of the dry season for the
rest of our voyage. It is about here, therefore, that the seasons of the eastern and western re-
gions of the Archipelago are divided. West of this line from June to December is generally
fine, and often very dry, the rest of the year being the wet season. East of it the weather is
exceedingly uncertain, each island, and each side of an island, having its own peculiarities.
The difference seems to consist not so much in the distribution of the rainfall as in that of
the clouds and the moistness of the atmosphere. In Aru, for example, when we left, the little
