We Accordingly Put About, And Found That We Could Lay
No Nearer To Uta Than To Teor; However, By Great
Good luck, about
ten o'clock we hit upon a little coral island, and lay under its
lee till morning, when
A favourable change of wind brought us
back to Uta, and by evening (April 18th w e reached our first
anchorage in Matabello, where I resolved to stay a few days, and
then return to Goram. It way with much regret that I gave up my
trip to Ke and the intervening islands, which I had looked
forward to as likely to make up for my disappointment in Ceram,
since my short visit on my voyage to Aru had produced me so many
rare and beautiful insects.
The natives of Matabello are almost entirely occupied in making
cocoanut oil, which they sell to the Bugis and Goram traders, who
carry it to Banda and Amboyna. The rugged coral rock seems very
favourable to the growth of the cocoa-nut palm, which abounds
over the whole island to the very highest points, and produces
fruit all the year round. Along with it are great numbers of the
areca or betel-nut palm, the nuts of which are sliced, dried, and
ground into a paste, which is much used by the betel-chewing
Malays and Papuans. A11 the little children here even such as can
just run alone, carried between their lips a mass of the nasty-
looking red paste, which is even more disgusting than to see them
at the same age smoking cigars, which is very common even before
they are weaned.
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