Almost All
Of Them, However, Possess One Or More Papuan Slaves, On Whose
Labour They Live In Almost Absolute Idleness, Just Going Out On
Little Fishing Or Trading Excursions, As An Excitement In Their
Monotonous Existence.
They are under the rule of the Sultan of
Tidore, and every year have to pay a small tribute of Paradise
birds, tortoiseshell, or sago.
To obtain these, they go in the
fine season on a trading voyage to the mainland of New Guinea,
and getting a few goods on credit from some Ceram or Bugis
trader, make hard bargains with the natives, and gain enough to
pay their tribute, and leave a little profit for themselves.
Such a country is not a very pleasant one to live in, for as
there are no superfluities, there is nothing to sell; and had it
not been for a trader from Ceram who was residing there during my
stay, who had a small vegetable garden, and whose men
occasionally got a few spare fish, I should often have had
nothing to eat. Fowls, fruit, and vegetables are luxuries very
rarely to be purchased at Muka; and even cocoa-nuts, so
indispensable for eastern cookery, are not to be obtained; for
though there are some hundreds of trees in the village, all the
fruit is eaten green, to supply the place of the vegetables the
people are too lazy to cultivate. Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or
plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous weather
being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on what few
eatable birds we could shoot, with an occasional cuscus, or
eastern opossum, the only quadruped, except pigs, inhabiting the
island.
I had only shot two male Paradiseas on my tree when they ceased
visiting it, either owing to the fruit becoming scarce, or that
they were wise enough to know there was danger. We continued to
hear and see them in the forest, but after a month had not
succeeded in shooting any more; and as my chief object in
visiting Waigiou was to get these birds, I determined to go to
Bessir, where there are a number of Papuans who catch and
preserve them. I hired a small outrigger boat for this journey,
and left one of my men to guard my house and goods. We had to
wait several days for fine weather, and at length started early
one morning, and arrived late at night, after a rough and
disagreeable passage. The village of Bessir was built in the
water at the point of a small island. The chief food of the
people was evidently shell-fish, since great heaps of the shells
had accumulated in the shallow water between the houses and the
land, forming a regular "kitchen-midden "for the exploration of
some future archeologist. We spent the night in the chief's
house, and the next morning went over to the mainland to look out
for a place where I could reside. This part of Waigiou is really
another island to the south of the narrow channel we had passed
through in coming to Muka.
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