Having Calms And
Light Airs, We Were Three Days Reaching Gane, Near The South End
Of Gilolo, Where We Stayed To Fill.
Up our water-casks and buy a
few provisions.
We obtained fowls, eggs, sago, plantains, sweet
potatoes, yellow pumpkins, chilies, fish, and dried deer's meat;
and on the afternoon of the 29th proceeded on our voyage to Dorey
harbour. We found it, however, by no means easy to get along; for
so near to the equator the monsoons entirely fail of their
regularity, and after passing the southern point of Gilolo we had
calms, light puffs of wind, and contrary currents, which kept us
for five days in sight of the same islands between it and Poppa.
A squall them brought us on to the entrance of Dampier's Straits,
where we were again becalmed, and were three more days creeping
through them. Several native canoes now came off to us from
Waigiou on one side, and Batanta on the other, bringing a few
common shells, palm-leaf mats, cocoa-nuts, and pumpkins. They
were very extravagant in their demands, being accustomed to sell
their trifles to whalers and China ships, whose crews will
purchase anything at ten times its value. My only purchases were
a float belonging to a turtle-spear, carved to resemble a bird,
and a very well made palm-leaf box, for which articles I gave a
copper ring and a yard of calico. The canoes were very narrow and
furnished with an outrigger, and in some of them there was only
one man, who seemed to think nothing of coming out alone eight or
ten miles from shore. The people were Papuans, much resembling
the natives of Aru.
When we had got out of the Straits, and were fairly in the great
Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time since
leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and we had
to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New Guinea. I
looked with intense interest on those rugged mountains,
retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot
of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the
cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark forests produced
the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered
inhabitants of the earth - the varied species of Birds of
Paradise. A few days more and I hoped to be in pursuit of these,
and of the scarcely less beautiful insects which accompany them.
We had still, however, for several days only calms and light
head-winds, and it was not till the l0th of April that a fine
westerly breeze set in, followed by a squally night, which kept
us off the entrance of Dorey harbour. The next morning we
entered, and came to anchor off the small island of Mansinam, on
which dwelt two German missionaries, Messrs. Otto and Geisler.
The former immediately came on board to give us welcome, and
invited us to go on shore and breakfast with him.
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