Here The Goram Men Bring The Produce Of
Their Little Voyages, Which They Exchange For Cloth, Sago Cakes,
And Opium; And The Inhabitants Of All The Surrounding Islands
Visit It With The Game Object.
It is the rendezvous of the praus
trading to various parts of New Guinea, which here assort and dry
their cargoes, and refit for the voyage home.
Tripang and mussoi
bark are the most bulky articles of produce brought here, with
wild nutmegs, tortoiseshell, pearls, and birds of Paradise; in
smaller quantities. The villagers of the mainland of Ceram bring
their sago, which is thus distributed to the islands farther
east, while rice from Bali and Macassar can also be purchased at
a moderate price. The Goram men come here for their supplies of
opium, both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and
Waigiou, where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and
wealthy men are passionately fond of it. Schooners from Bali come
to buy Papuan slaves, while the sea-wandering Bugis arrive from
distant Singapore in their lumbering praus, bringing thence the
produce of the Chinamen's workshops and Kling's bazaar, as well
as of the looms of Lancashire and Massachusetts.
One of the Bugis traders who had arrived a few days before from
Mysol, brought me news of my assistant Charles Allen, with whom
he was well acquainted, and who, he assured me; was making large
collections of birds and insects, although he had not obtained
any birds of Paradise; Silinta, where he was staying, not being a
good place for them. This was on the whole satisfactory, and I
was anxious to reach him as soon as possible.
Leaving Kilwaru early in the morning of June 1st, with a strong
east wind we doubled the point of Ceram about noon, the heavy sea
causing my prau to roll abort a good deal, to the damage of our
crockery. As bad weather seemed coming on, we got inside the
reefs and anchored opposite the village of Warns-warns to wait
for a change.
The night was very squally, and though in a good harbour we
rolled and jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater
cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our entire Goram crew
had decamped, taking with them all they possessed and a little
more, and leaving us without any small boat in which to land. I
immediately told my Amboyna men to load and fire the muskets as a
signal of distress, which was soon answered by the village chief
sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested that
messengers should be immediately sent to the neighbouring
villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My
prau was brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest
in the mud at low water, and part of a house was given me in
which T could stay for a while. I now found my progress again
suddenly checked, just when I thought I had overcome my chief
difficulties. As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness,
and had given them almost everything they had asked for, I can
impute their running away only to their being totally
unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and to some
undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The
oldest man was an opium smoker, and a reputed thief, but I had
been obliged to take him at the last moment as a substitute for
another. I feel sure it was he who induced the others to run
away, and as they knew the country well, and had several hours'
start of us, there was little chance of catching them.
We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram which
supplies most of the surrounding islands with their daily bread,
and during our week's delay I had an opportunity of seeing the
whole process of making it, and obtaining some interesting
statistics. The sago tree is a palm, thicker and larger than the
cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense
pinnate spiny leaves, which completely cover the trunk till it is
many years old. It has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa palm,
and when about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense
terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies. It grows in
swamps, or in swampy hollows on the rocky slopes of hills, where
it seems to thrive equally well as when exposed to the influx of
salt or brackish water. The midribs of the immense leaves form
one of the most useful articles in these lands, supplying the
place of bamboo, to which for many purposes they are superior.
They are twelve or fifteen feet long, and, when very fine, as
thick in the lower part as a man's leg. They are very light,
consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with a hard thin rind
or bark. Entire houses are built of these; they form admirable
roofing-poles for thatch; split and well-supported, they do for
flooring; and when chosen of equal size, and pegged together side
by side to fill up the panels of framed wooden horses, they have
a very neat appearance, and make better walls and partitions than
boards, as they do not shrink, require no paint or varnish, and
are not a quarter the expense. When carefully split and shaved
smooth they are formed into light boards with pegs of the bark
itself, and are the foundation of the leaf-covered boxes of
Goram. All the insect-boxes I used in the Moluccas were thus made
at Amboyna, and when covered with stout paper inside and out, are
strong, light, and secure the insect-pins remarkably well. The
leaflet of the sago folded and tied side by side on the smaller
midribs form the "atap "or thatch in universal use, while the
product of the trunk is the staple food of some= hundred
thousands of men.
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