Now If We Suppose A
Traveller Ignorant Of Malay, Picking Up A Word Or Two Here And
There Of The
"Batchian language," and noting down the "physical
and moral peculiarities, manners, and customs of the Batchian
people" - (for there are
Travellers who do all this in four-and-
twenty hours) - what an accurate and instructive chapter we should
have' what transitions would be pointed out, what theories of the
origin of races would be developed while the next traveller might
flatly contradict every statement and arrive at exactly opposite
conclusions.
Soon after I arrived here the Dutch Government introduced a new
copper coinage of cents instead of doits (the 100th instead of
the 120th part of a guilder), and all the old coins were ordered
to be sent to Ternate to be changed. I sent a bag containing
6,000 doits, and duly received the new money by return of the
boat. Then Ali went to bring it, however, the captain required a
written order; so I waited to send again the next day, and it was
lucky I did so, for that night my house was entered, all my boxes
carried out and ransacked, and the various articles left on the
road about twenty yards off, where we found them at five in the
morning, when, on getting up and finding the house empty, we
rushed out to discover tracks of the thieves. Not being able to
find the copper money which they thought I had just received,
they decamped, taking nothing but a few yards of cotton cloth and
a black coat and trousers, which latter were picked up a few days
afterwards hidden in the grass.
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