Here Are Large Sky-Coloured Birds, Such As We Lately
Killed On New Guinea, And Many Other Small Birds, Unknown
To us.
Here are likewise abundance of bats, as big as young coneys, their
necks, head, ears, and noses like
Foxes, their hair rough, that
about their necks is of a whitish yellow, that on their heads and
shoulders black, their wings are four feet over from tip to tip;
they smell like foxes. The fish are bass, rock-fish, and a sort of
fish like mullets, old-wives, whip-rays, and some other sorts that I
knew not; but no great plenty of any, for it is deep water till
within less than a mile of the shore, then there is a bank of coral
rocks, within which you have shoal-water, white clean sand, so there
is no good fishing with the seine.
This island lies in latitude 2 degrees 43 minutes south, and
meridian distance from port Babo, on the island Timor, four hundred
and eighty-six miles: besides this island, here are nine or ten
other small islands.
The inhabitants of this island are a sort of very tawny Indians,
with long black hair, who in their manners differ but little from
the Mindanayans, and others of these eastern islands. These seem to
be the chief; for besides them we saw also shock curl pated New
Guinea negroes, many of which are slaves to the others, but I think
not all. They are very poor, wear no clothes but have a clout about
their middle, made of the rinds of the tops of palmetto trees; but
the women had a sort of calico cloth. Their chief ornaments are
blue and yellow beads, worn about their wrists. The men arm
themselves with bows and arrows, lances, broad swords, like those of
Mindanao; their lances are pointed with bone: they strike fish very
ingeniously with wooden fish-spears, and have a very ingenious way
of making the fish rise; for they have a piece of wood curiously
carved, and painted much like a dolphin (and perhaps other figures);
these they let down into the water by a line with a small weight to
sink it; when they think it low enough, they haul the line into
their boats very fast, and the fish rise up after this figure, and
they stand ready to strike them when they are near the surface of
the water. But their chief livelihood is from their plantations;
yet they have large boats, and go over to New Guinea, where they get
slaves, fine parrots, &c, which they carry to Goram and exchange for
calicoes. One boat came from thence a little before I arrived here,
of whom I bought some parrots, and would have bought a slave but
they would not barter for anything but calicoes, which I had not.
Their houses on this side were very small, and seemed only to be for
necessity; but on the other side of the island we saw good large
houses.
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