We Learn Also That
These Changes Have Taken Place At A Comparatively Recent Epoch,
For The Surface Of The Coral
Has scarcely suffered from the
action of the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly
resembling those still found upon
The beach, and many of them
retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered over
the surface of the island to near its summit.
Whether the Goram group formed originally part of New Guinea or
of Ceram it is scarcely possible to determine, and its
productions will throw little light upon the question, if, as I
suppose, the islands have been entirely submerged within the
epoch of existing species of animals, as in that case it must owe
its present fauna and flora to recent immigration from
surrounding lands; and with this view its poverty in species very
well agrees. It possesses much in common with East Ceram, but at
the same time has a good deal of resemblance to the Ke Islands
and Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Ke,
Banda, 11-Iatabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinct
species, C. neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islands
have also a common facies - facts which seem to indicate that some
more extensive land has recently disappeared from the area they
now occupy, and has supplied them with a few of its peculiar
productions.
The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a race of
traders. Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, and Aru Islands,
the whole north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanata to
Salwatty, and the island of Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend
their voyages to Tidore and Ternate, as well as to Banda and
Amboyna, Their praus are all made by that wonderful race of
boatbuilders, the Ke. islanders, who annually turn out some
hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be surpassed
for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship, They trade
chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nutmegs, and
tortoiseshell, which they sell to the Bugis traders at Ceram-laut
or Aru, few of them caring to take their products to any other
market. In other respects they are a lazy race, living very
poorly, and much given to opium smoking. The only native
manufactures are sail-matting, coarse cotton cloth, and pandanus-
leaf boxes, prettily stained and ornamented with shell-work.
In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are
about a dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the
inhabitants, and exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any
order is received from the Dutch Government, when, being backed
by a higher power, they show a little more strict authority. My
friend the Rajah of Ammer (commonly called Rajah of Goram) told
me that a few years ago, before the Dutch had interfered in the
affairs of the island, the trade was not carried on so peaceably
as at present, rival praus often fighting when on the way to the
same locality, or trafficking in the same village. Now such a
thing is never thought of-one of the good effects of the
superintendence of a civilized government. Disputes between
villages are still, however, sometimes settled by fighting, and I
one day saw about fifty men, carrying long guns and heavy
cartridge-belts, march through the village. They had come from
the other side of the island on some question of trespass or
boundary, and were prepared for war if peaceable negotiations
should fail.
While at Manowolko I had purchased for 100 florins £9.) a small
prau, which was brought over the next day, as I was informed it
was more easy to have the necessary alterations made in Goram,
where several Ke workmen were settled.
As soon as we began getting my prau ready I was obliged to give
up collecting, as I found that unless I was constantly on the
spot myself very little work would be clone. As I proposed making
some long voyages in this boat, I determined to fit it up
conveniently, and was obliged to do all the inside work myself,
assisted by my two Amboynese boys. I had plenty of visitors,
surprised to see a white man at work, and much astonished at the
novel arrangements I was making in one of their native vessels.
Luckily I had a few tools of my own, including a small saw and
some chisels, and these were now severely tried, cutting and
fitting heavy iron-wood planks for the flooring and the posts
that support the triangular mast. Being of the best London make,
they stood the work well, and without them it would have been
impossible for me to have finished my boat with half the
neatness, or in double the time. I had a Ke workman to put in new
ribs, for which I bought nails of a Bugis trader, at 8d. a pound.
My gimlets were, however, too small; and having no augers we were
obliged to bore all the holes with hot irons, a most tedious and
unsatisfactory operation.
Five men had engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then
go with me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate. Their ideas of work
were, however, very different from mine, and I had immense
difficulty with them; seldom more than two or three coming
together, and a hundred excuses being given for working only half
a day when they did come. Yet they were constantly begging
advances of money, saying they had nothing to eat. When I gave it
them they were sure to stay away the next day, and when I refused
any further advances some of them declined working any more. As
the boat approached completion my difficulties with the men
increased. The uncle of one had commenced a war, or sort of
faction fight, and wanted his assistance; another's wife was ill,
and would not let him come; a third had fever and ague, and pains
in his head and back; and a fourth had an inexorable creditor who
would not let him go out of his sight.
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