Its
Body Is All Beset With Sharp Spines, Or Quills, Like A Porcupine, Whence
Its Name Is Derived.
All round Amboina the bottom is sand, but the water is so deep that
there is no anchorage near its shores, except to leeward, or on the west
side, where a ship may anchor in forty fathoms, close to the shore in
the harbour.
This harbour runs so deep into the island as almost to
divide it into two, which are joined by so narrow a neck of land that
the Malays often haul their canoes across. On the east side of the entry
into the harbour there is a small fort of six guns, close to which the
depth is twenty fathoms. About a league farther up is the usual
anchorage for ships, close under the guns of the great castle, which has
been called Victoria ever since the massacre of the English at this
place. About two miles farther to the N.E. and within the harbour, is
the place where the English factory formerly stood; and near it is the
hole into which the English were said to have been thrown after the
massacre. Few of us who were now here but expected the same fate; and
some of the inhabitants did not scruple to say that our only protection
was our journal, which had been sent to Batavia by the Dutch ship we met
when going into the harbour; as by this it would soon be known all over
India that a part of Captain Dampier's crew had arrived at Aniboina,
which would cause us to be enquired after.
A little to the eastward of Amboina there are several other small
islands, the most noted of which are Boangbessay and Hinomsa, only a
small distance east from Amboina. These two islands are moderately high,
and not above a third part so large as Amboina. They are both well
fortified, and produce store of cloves. The chief place for nutmegs is
the island of Banda, which also belongs to the Dutch, being in lat. 4 deg.
20' S. 28 leagues S.S.E. from Amboina. This island is said to have the
form of a man's leg and foot, and is well fortified. The governor of
Amboina is supreme over all the spice islands, even to Ternate and
Tidore, which are also spice islands belonging to the Dutch, and are
about forty miles to the north of the equator. We were so troubled at
Amboina by musquitoes, a sort of gnats, that we had every night to put
ourselves into a bag before we could go to sleep, as otherwise these
insects bit us so intolerably that we could get no rest. Wherever they
bit, there commonly rose a red blister, almost as broad as a silver
penny, which itched so violently that many cannot forbear from
scratching, so as to cause inflammations that sometimes aid in the loss
of a limb. During our stay, we were allowed to walk in a paved yard
about sixty yards square; but were not permitted to go into the town,
that we might not learn their strength, or make any discoveries
prejudicial to them.
We remained at Amboina from the 31st of May to the 14th of September,
1705, when three of their sloops were ready to sail with cloves to
Batavia, in which twenty-five of our men were sent away to Batavia, ten
of us being left behind, who they said were to be sent in another
vessel, almost ready to sail. On the 27th September, a Malay man was
brought to the Stadt-house to be tried for his life, being accused by
his own wife of having murdered his slave. The slave had been dead six
months, when the wife falling out with her husband, she went to the
fiscal in the heat of her rage and revealed the murder, on which the
husband was thrown into prison, but it was generally believed that he
was wrongfully accused by his wife. During his trial the earthquake took
place, formerly mentioned, which made the court break up, fearful the
house might fall on their heads. At this time I observed that it is an
error to suppose that it is always calm during an earthquake; for we had
a fine fresh gale at S.S.W. both days on which the earthquake happened.
Next day the court sat about eleven o'clock, continuing the trial; and
while the wife was in her greatest violence in the accusation of her
husband, the earth shook again with much violence, which obliged the
court again to break up.
That same day, the 28th September, I and four more of our men were sent
off for Batavia in a Chinese sloop, the other five men being promised to
be sent after us in a short time, but we never heard of them afterwards.
We sailed westwards till we came to the island of Lancas, in lat. 5 deg. 27'
S. and by my estimation, 2 deg. 21', or 155 miles W. from Amboina. We then
steered W. by N. till we made two islands called the Cabeses, whence
we procured some hundred cocoa nuts. The eastermost island, to which we
sent our boat, is low and uninhabited, but has been planted full of
cocoa-nut trees by the Dutch, for the use of their vessels going between
the spice islands and Batavia, as it is a kind of miracle to see any
other ship in these parts except those belonging to the Dutch. Off this
island we met our own bark which had brought us from America to Amboina,
the Dutch having fitted her up with a main-mast and converted her into a
very good vessel. This island is in lat. 5 deg. 23' S. and nearly W. by N.
from the island of Lancas, about forty-five miles distant, and has a
shoal extending about two miles from the shore. To the S.W. of this is
the other island of Cabeses, a pretty high island, on which the Dutch
always keep a corporal and two soldiers, who go two or three times all
over the isle to see that no cloves are planted, and if they find any to
cut them down and burn them, lest any other nation might be able to
procure that commodity, in which case Amboina would become of little
value, as cloves are its only valuable product.
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