第205章
AFTER my return from Gilolo to Ternate, in March 1858, I made arrangements for my long-wished-for voyage to the mainland of New Guinea, where I anticipated that my collections would surpass those which I had formed at the Aru Islands. The poverty of Ternate in articles used by Europeans was shown, by my searching in vain through all the stores for such common things as flour, metal spoons, wide-mouthed phials, beeswax, a penknife, and a stone or metal pestle and mortar. I took with me four servants: my head man Ali, and a Ternate lad named Jumaat (Friday), to shoot; Lahagi, a steady middle-aged man, to cut timber and assist me in insect-collecting; and Loisa, a Javanese cook. As I knew Ishould have to build a house at Dorey, where I was going, I took with me eighty cadjans, or waterproof mats, made of pandanus leaves, to cover over my baggage on first landing, and to help to roof my house afterwards.
We started on the 25th of March in the schooner Hester Helena, belonging to my friend Mr. Duivenboden, and bound on a trading voyage along the north coast of New Guinea. Having calms and light airs, we were three days reaching Gane, near the south end of Gilolo, where we stayed to fill. up our water-casks and buy a few provisions. We obtained fowls, eggs, sago, plantains, sweet potatoes, yellow pumpkins, chilies, fish, and dried deer's meat;and on the afternoon of the 29th proceeded on our voyage to Dorey harbour. We found it, however, by no means easy to get along; for so near to the equator the monsoons entirely fail of their regularity, and after passing the southern point of Gilolo we had calms, light puffs of wind, and contrary currents, which kept us for five days in sight of the same islands between it and Poppa.
A squall them brought us on to the entrance of Dampier's Straits, where we were again becalmed, and were three more days creeping through them. Several native canoes now came off to us from Waigiou on one side, and Batanta on the other, bringing a few common shells, palm-leaf mats, cocoa-nuts, and pumpkins. They were very extravagant in their demands, being accustomed to sell their trifles to whalers and China ships, whose crews will purchase anything at ten times its value. My only purchases were a float belonging to a turtle-spear, carved to resemble a bird, and a very well made palm-leaf box, for which articles I gave a copper ring and a yard of calico. The canoes were very narrow and furnished with an outrigger, and in some of them there was only one man, who seemed to think nothing of coming out alone eight or ten miles from shore. The people were Papuans, much resembling the natives of Aru.
When we had got out of the Straits, and were fairly in the great Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time since leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and we had to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New Guinea. Ilooked with intense interest on those rugged mountains, retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark forests produced the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered inhabitants of the earth--the varied species of Birds of Paradise. A few days more and I hoped to be in pursuit of these, and of the scarcely less beautiful insects which accompany them.
We had still, however, for several days only calms and light head-winds, and it was not till the l0th of April that a fine westerly breeze set in, followed by a squally night, which kept us off the entrance of Dorey harbour. The next morning we entered, and came to anchor off the small island of Mansinam, on which dwelt two German missionaries, Messrs. Otto and Geisler.
The former immediately came on board to give us welcome, and invited us to go on shore and breakfast with him. We were then introduced to his companion who was suffering dreadfully from an abscess on the heel, which had confined him to the house for six months--and to his wife, a young German woman, who had been out only three months. Unfortunately she could speak no Malay or English, and had to guess at our compliments on her excellent breakfast by the justice we did to it.
These missionaries were working men, and had been sent out, as being more useful among savages than persons of a higher class.