We Continued On Board Till The 31st, Two Days, Not Knowing How They
Meant To Dispose Of Us; In Which Time They Would Not Supply Us With Any
Victuals, Though We Offered A Crown A Pound For Beef, Pork, Or Bread.
In
the evening of this day they took us all on shore, lodging us in two
rooms near the
Stadt-house, our bark, with all our money and goods,
being taken from us, except what we happened to have about our persons,
and soon after our vessel and goods were sold by auction. We were fed
with bad meat, which our stomachs could ill digest, being very weak with
having been so long on short allowance, and if we desired to have better
we had to buy it with our own money. Several of us had fortunately some
money about us, and as long as that lasted we purchased provisions from
our keeper. For a Spanish dollar, which was worth five shillings and a
penny, he would only give us five Dutch skellings, or the value of
about two and six-pence; and even for this he gave us no more victuals
than we could have bought for five-pence, if we had been at liberty to
go into the town; so that, instead of five shillings for the Spanish
dollar, we in reality had only five-pence. During my leisure, I had many
opportunities of enquiring into the condition of Amboina, by which I was
enabled to draw up a pretty large account of the island and its
inhabitants, which I flatter myself will be acceptable to the public, as
the Dutch are careful to prevent any accounts of this place from being
published.
This island of Amboina, so famous, or rather infamous, for the
cruelties and injustice formerly committed there by the Dutch upon the
English, is twelve leagues long from N. to S. being high and
mountainous, with intermediate vallies, which are very fertile, but the
hills are in a great measure barren. The soil of the vallies is black,
and affords salt-petre. The middle of the island is in lat. 3 deg. 40' S.
The original inhabitants of the island are Malays, who are of middle
stature and tawny complexions. The women are brighter than the men, and
have long black hair, reaching to the calves of their legs. They have
round faces, with small mouths, noses, and eyes. Their dress is a linen
or cotton waistcoat, reaching only below their breasts, and a cloth
round their waists, four yards long and a yard broad, which serves as a
petticoat, as the Dutch women only are permitted to wear petticoats;
neither are any of the men allowed to wear hats, except the king or
rajah. The natives are numerous, yet the Dutch possess the whole
sea-coast, and have here a strong castle, built of stone, mounted by
sixty pieces of cannon, besides several small forts in other parts of
the island. Near the castle is a small town of about 100 houses, of
stone, brick, or timber, inhabited by the Dutch.
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