Dec. 21st.-A Heavy Swell From The South-West Rolling Us About
Most Uncomfortably.
A steady wind was blowing however, and we got
on very well.
Dec. 22d.-The swell had gone down. We passed Boutong, a large
island, high, woody, and populous, the native place of some of
our crew. A small prau returning from Bali to the, island of
Goram overtook us. The nakoda (captain) was known to our owner.
They had been two years away, but were full of people, with
several black Papuans on board. At 6 P.M. we passed Wangiwangi,
low but not flat, inhabited and subject to Boutong. We had now
fairly entered the Molucca Sea. After dark it was a beautiful
sight to look down on our rudders, from which rushed eddying
streams of phosphoric light gemmed with whirling sparks of fire.
It resembled (more nearly than anything else to which I can
compare it) one of the large irregular nebulous star-clusters
seen through a good telescope, with the additional attraction of
ever-changing form and dancing motion.
Dec. 23d.-Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening
barely visible behind us. The Goram prau about a mile south of
us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true course
during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of
the sea, the direction of which they notice at sunset, and sail
by it during the night. In these seas they are never (in fine
weather) more than two days without seeing land.
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