Near Tidore Is The Large Island Of Gilolo, Which Is Divided Between
The Mahometans And Idolaters.
The two Mahometan kings have themselves
contributed liberally to the population of the island; one of them
having 600 children, and the other 650.
The pagans are more moderate in
their conduct in this respect than the Mahometans, and are even less
superstitious; yet it is said that they worship, for the rest of the
day, whatever they first see every morning. In this island there grows a
peculiar sort of reed, as big as a man's leg, which is full of limpid
wholesome water. On the 12th November, a public warehouse was opened by
the Spaniards in the town of Tidore, for the sale of their merchandise,
which were exchanged at the following rates. For ten yards of good red
cloth, they had one bahar of cloves, containing four cantars or quintals
and six pounds; the cantar being 100 pounds. For fifteen yards of
inferior cloth, they had one bahar. Likewise a bahar for 35 drinking
glasses, or for 17 cathyls of quicksilver. The islanders also brought
all sorts of provisions daily to the ships, together with excellent
water from certain hot springs in the mountains where the cloves grow.
They here received a singular present for the king of Spain, being two
dead birds about the size of turtle-doves, with small legs and heads
and long bills, having two or three long party-coloured, feathers at
each side, instead of wings, all the rest of their plumage being of a
uniform tawny colour. These birds never fly except when favoured by the
wind. The Mahometans allege that these birds come from Paradise, and
therefore call them the birds of God.
Besides cloves, the Molucca islands produce ginger, rice, sago, goats,
sheep, poultry, popinjays, white and red figs, almonds, pomegranates,
oranges and lemons, and a kind of honey which is produced by a species
of fly less than ants. Likewise sugar-canes, cocoa-nuts, melons, gourds,
and a species of fruit, called camulical, which is extremely cold. The
isle of Tidore is in lat. 0 deg. 45' N. and long. 127 deg. 10' E.[18] and about
9 deg. 30' W. from the Ladrones,[19] in a direction nearly S.W. Formerly the
natives of these islands were all heathens, the Moors or Mahometans
having only had footing there for about fifty years before the arrival
of the Spaniards. Ternate is the most northerly of these islands, and
Batchian is almost under the line, being the largest of them all.[20]
[Footnote 18: This is the true position, reckoning the longitude from
Greenwich. In the original the longitude is said to be 170 deg. W. from the
first meridian of the voyagers, being Seville in Spain, which would give
174 deg. E. from Greenwich; no great error, considering the imperfect way in
which the longitude was then reckoned at sea. - E.]
[Footnote 19: This is a gross error, perhaps of the press, as the
difference of longitude is 16 deg.
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