Looking At My Whole
Voyage In This Vessel From The Time When I Left Goram In May, It
Will Appear That Rely Experiences Of Travel In A Native Prau Have
Not Been Encouraging.
My first crew ran away; two men were lost
for a month on a desert island; we were ten
Times aground on
coral reefs; we lost four anchors; the sails were devoured by
rats; the small boat was lost astern; we were thirty-eight days
on the voyage home, which should not have taken twelve; we were
many times short of food and water; we had no compass-lamp, owing
to there not being a drop of oil in Waigiou when we left; and to
crown all, during the whole of our voyages from Goram by Ceram to
Waigiou, and from Waigiou to Ternate, occupying in all seventy-
eight days, or only twelve days short of three months (all in
what was supposed to be the favourable season), we had not one
single day of fair wind. We were always close braced up, always
struggling against wind, tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that
would scarcely sail nearer than eight points from the wind. Every
seaman will admit that my first voyage in my own boat was a most
unlucky one.
Charles Allen had obtained a tolerable collection of birds and
insects at Mysol, but far less than be would have done if I had
not been so unfortunate as to miss visiting him. After waiting
another week or two till he was nearly starved, he returned to
Wahai in Ceram, and heard, much to his surprise, that I had left
a fortnight before.
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