Tripang And Mussoi Bark Are The Most Bulky Articles Of Produce Brought Here, With Wild Nutmegs, Tortoiseshell, Pearls, And Birds Of Paradise; In Smaller Quantities.

The villagers of the mainland of Ceram bring their sago, which is thus distributed to the islands farther east, while rice from Bali and Macassar can also be purchased at a moderate price.

The Goram men come here for their supplies of opium, both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and Waigiou, where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and wealthy men are passionately fond of it. Schooners from Bali come to buy Papuan slaves, while the sea-wandering Bugis arrive from distant Singapore in their lumbering praus, bringing thence the produce of the Chinamen's workshops and Kling's bazaar, as well as of the looms of Lancashire and Massachusetts.

One of the Bugis traders who had arrived a few days before from Mysol, brought me news of my assistant Charles Allen, with whom he was well acquainted, and who, he assured me; was making large collections of birds and insects, although he had not obtained any birds of Paradise; Silinta, where he was staying, not being a good place for them. This was on the whole satisfactory, and I was anxious to reach him as soon as possible.

Leaving Kilwaru early in the morning of June 1st, with a strong east wind we doubled the point of Ceram about noon, the heavy sea causing my prau to roll abort a good deal, to the damage of our crockery. As bad weather seemed coming on, we got inside the reefs and anchored opposite the village of Warns-warns to wait for a change.

The night was very squally, and though in a good harbour we rolled and jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our entire Goram crew had decamped, taking with them all they possessed and a little more, and leaving us without any small boat in which to land. I immediately told my Amboyna men to load and fire the muskets as a signal of distress, which was soon answered by the village chief sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested that messengers should be immediately sent to the neighbouring villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My prau was brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest in the mud at low water, and part of a house was given me in which T could stay for a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, just when I thought I had overcome my chief difficulties. As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness, and had given them almost everything they had asked for, I can impute their running away only to their being totally unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and to some undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The oldest man was an opium smoker, and a reputed thief, but I had been obliged to take him at the last moment as a substitute for another.

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