This proposed taxation will certainly be very light, for each man can earn the five guilders required of him by carrying coal or freight for a week at the city of Amboina.
The great obstacle to every reform among these natives is, that only a very few of them, if they have enough for one day, will earn any thing for the morrow. “Carpe diem” is a motto more absolutely observed here than in luxurious Rome. The desire of all Europeans to have something reserved for sickness or old age is a feeling which these people appear to never experience, and such innate improvidence is, unfortunately, encouraged from their earliest childhood by the unfailing and unsparing manner in which Nature supplies their limited wants. The possibility of a famine is something they cannot comprehend.
In 1854, 120,283 Amsterdam pounds of cloves were raised on this island from 13,042 trees, each tree yielding the great quantity of nine pounds. In the same year, on Saparua, from 29,732 fruit-trees, 181,137 Amsterdam pounds were gathered, one-third of the whole crop (510,912 pounds) obtained that year in Amboina, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut. On Haruku 38,803 pounds were gathered that year. These three islands, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, with the neighboring south coast of Ceram, form one residency, over which an assistant resident or resident of the second rank is placed.
From Lainitu we passed along the northern shore to Nullahia, where we remained for the night. Here I purchased many beautiful “harp-shells” and a few large cones, which were formerly so rare that they have been sold in Europe for more than two hundred dollars apiece. The next day we continued on to Amet, the largest kampong on the island. Here a good missionary was located, who was indeed like Melchisedek, “both priest and king.” From this place he is accustomed to travel to the various villages, preaching, teaching, and keeping a general surveillance over the conduct of his people, and the good results of his labor were well shown in the general spirit of thrift and order which characterizes these villages as compared to the Mohammedan kampongs I had previously visited on the shores of Amboina. Every person in all these villages is nominally a Christian, and this, I believe, is the only island in the archipelago of which that can be said. The missionary, however, informs me that a few of them occasionally steal away to some secret place among the mountains where they practise their ancient rites by making offerings to spirits, possibly those of their ancestors, which they were accustomed to worship before the introduction of Christianity.
The village of Amet is one of the best places in the whole Moluccas to gather shells. The platform of coral which begirts the island extends out here nearly two English miles from high-water level to where the heavy swell breaks along its outer edge; and all this flat area is either bare at low tide, or only covered to the depth of a few inches by small pools. Here the beautiful “mitre-shells” abound—the Mitra episcopalis, or “Bishop’s mitre,” and the Mitra papalis, or “Pope’s mitre,” and many beautiful cones and cypræas.
From Amet to Abobo, at the southern end of the island, a distance of more than a mile, the coral platform narrows until it is quite near the high-water line. Along the whole length of this reef the heavy swell from the ocean is seen rising again and again into one grand wall, which, slowly curling its high white crest, plunges headlong over the soft polyps, which, despite the utmost efforts of the ocean, slowly but continually advance their wondrous structure seaward. This endless lashing and washing of the waves, which would wear away the most adamantine rocks, only enables those delicate animals to work with a greater vigor, and this is probably the chief reason that the reef here is wider than anywhere else along the shores of the neighboring islands.
Between Amet and Abobo there is sometimes found a very beautiful cone, covered with mottled bands of black and salmon-color, which once commanded fabulous prices in Europe, and is now generally regarded by the natives as the most valuable shell obtained in these seas. Although I travelled along nearly all the shores of the adjacent islands, I was continually assured that this part of Nusalaut was the only place where this shell was ever found, an assertion which I regard as true, so sparing is Nature of her choicest treasures.
Returning from Abobo to Nullahia and Lainitu, I took a small prau for Saparua. The monsoon was light and the sea smooth at first, but when again we approached Tanjong O, which these natives always spoke of with the same respect that our sailors speak of Cape Horn, we found a very strong current setting in one direction, while the wind had freshened from the opposite quarter. The meeting of the wind and current made the waves rise irregularly up in pyramids and tumble over in every direction. The natives, apparently half terrified, stripped off their clothes, as if they expected that the boat would certainly be swamped, and that soon their only chance of escape would be to swim to the shore and attempt to climb up the ragged rocks through the surf; but I encouraged them to paddle with all their might, and though several waves broke over us, we went safely through. As soon as the danger was past, each native frequently looked back and boastfully shook his head, as if to taunt the evil spirit that dwells on this dangerous headland.
When we arrived at Saparua, I found the Resident just on the point of starting for the neighboring coast of Ceram, and only waiting to invite me to accompany him. So again I was in good fortune, for I had not anticipated reaching that almost unknown island. From the southern bay we were taken in chairs across the isthmus, that connects the two main parts of Saparua, to the north bay. It was now night, but we continued along the east side of this bay to the kampong Nollot, at the northern end of the island, the nearest point to the part of Ceram we were to visit. Scores of natives followed us, some to relieve each other as chair-bearers, and others to carry immense torches of dry palm-leaves, which successively blazed brightly for a moment and lighted up the adjoining forests and our strange party. Several villages lay along our route, and, as we entered each, huge piles of leaves were set on fire, and the half-naked natives all whooped and shouted until we really seemed to be in the midst of the infernal regions.