On our right, as we looked toward the east from our lofty position, the steep, conical peak of Tidore was seen rising about six thousand feet above the sea. It is one of the sharpest peaks in all this part of the archipelago. As it has no crater either at the summit or on its sides, there is no vent by which the gases beneath it can find a ready escape. They must therefore remain confined until they have accumulated sufficient power to hurl high into the air the whole mass of ashes, sand, and rock which presses them down. This is exactly what happened at Makian. Professor Reinwardt, who examined this peak in 1821, declared that it would be blown up in twenty years, and, strange to say, it was nineteen years afterward that the terrific eruption of Makian, already described, occurred. As the islands Ternate, Tidore, Motir, and Makian, are only cones standing on the same great fissure in the earth’s crust, Professor Reinwardt’s prediction was fulfilled almost to the very letter.
The village of Tidore is situated on its southern side, and is the residence of the sultan, whose territory is no less extensive than that of the Sultan of Ternate. It includes Tidore, Mari, the two eastern peninsulas of Gilolo, Gebi, Misol, Salwatti, Battanta, and the adjacent islands, the western and northern shores of the western peninsula of New Guinea, and the islands in Geelvink Bay. The population of Tidore and Mari is about seven thousand five hundred. The former cultivate the flanks of the mountain up to a height of about three thousand feet. Above this line is a dense wood, but the pointed summit is quite bare. The income of this sultan consists in his share of the produce obtained on Gilolo, in the sago, massoi-bark, tortoise-shell, tripang, and paradise-birds, which are yearly brought from Papua, and the islands between it and Celebes, and in twelve thousand eight hundred guilders (over five thousand dollars) paid him by the Dutch Government, in accordance with the promise made by the East India Company, when they destroyed the spice-trees in his territory. The extension of the empire of Tidore eastward was probably effected by Malays, who migrated in that direction; for it is stated in regard to Misol that the Papuans, who are now driven back into the interior, occupied the whole island when it was first visited by Europeans. This tendency to push on toward the coast is the more interesting, because it is generally supposed that, ages and ages ago, the ancestors of the present Polynesian race passed out from this part of the Malay Archipelago into Micronesia, and thence into the wide area they now occupy. From the northern end of Gilolo, and the adjacent island of Morti (which is really but a part of the northern peninsula), the voyage to Lord North’s Island, and thence to the Pelew group, would not be more difficult to accomplish than the piratical expeditions which even the Papuans, an inferior race, are known to have made since the Dutch possessed the Moluccas.
The taxes on paradise-birds[47] and other articles, levied on Papua and the islands near it, are obtained by a fleet which is sent out each year from the port of Tidore, and which, according to the official reports of the Dutch, carries out the sultan’s orders in such a manner that it is little better than a great marauding expedition.
But while we have been engaged in viewing the scene before us, and recalling its history, the hours have been gliding by, and we are admonished to hasten down the mountain by the approaching night. When we reached the village, I was shown a remarkable case of birth-mark on a young child, whose father owned the summer-house we had just visited high up on the mountain. A short time previous to the birth of the child, the family were living there. One night a heavy earthquake occurred, and a brilliant cloud was seen rising out of the top of the mountain. Immediately they began to prepare to hasten down, and the mother, being greatly frightened, attempted to run before, but fell heavily on her right arm, bruising it severely in one place. Soon afterward the child was born, and on its right arm, and exactly in the same relative position as where the mother had received the injury from her fall, was found a red spot, or mark, which all agreed had exactly the outline of the bright cloud seen by them on the mountain-top.
The chief articles of export from this place are those brought from the islands to the east, namely, tortoise-shell, tripang, paradise-birds, massoi-bark, and wax. Up to 1837, paradise-birds formed a very important article of export from Ternate. In 1836 over 10,000 guilders’ worth were exported, chiefly to China. In 1844 over 10,000 guilders’ worth of massoi-bark was exported from this small emporium. It comes from the interior of New Guinea, and is sent to Java, where its aromatic oil is used by the natives in rheumatic diseases. Until 1844, from 14,000 to nearly 70,000 guilders’ worth of tortoise-shell was annually exported, chiefly to China; but since that time it has frequently not exceeded 4,000. The chief imports are rice, salt, and cotton goods. A merchant who sends a small vessel each year to Misol, and along the northern coast of Papua, kindly offered me an opportunity to take passage on her; but as it would be about six months before she would come back to Surabaya, in Java, I was in doubt whether I ought to go further east, especially as Mr. Wallace had obtained little at Dorey, the only port on the north coast, and besides, it has the unfavorable reputation of being one of the most sickly places in the whole archipelago. The two missionaries stationed at that place are now here, having been obliged to return on account of repeated and severe attacks of fever. I was told that the residents of Dorey are only free from this disease when they have a running sore on some part of the body. While I was thus doubting whither to direct my course, the man-of-war stationed to watch for pirates in the Molucca Passage, between this island and the northern end of Celebes, came into port. She would return immediately to Kema, a port on the eastern shore of the northern peninsula of Celebes, and her commander kindly offered to take me over to the “Minahassa,” as the Dutch call the northern extremity of that island. I had long heard this spoken of as decidedly the most charming part of the archipelago, and probably the most beautiful spot in the world. But a moment was needed, therefore, to decide whether I would go to the sickly coast of Papua, or visit that beautiful land, and I accepted the commander’s invitation with many thanks. I had been on this island four days, and we had had four earthquakes. Indeed, the mountain seemed preparing for another grand eruption, and I was not loath to leave its shores. So great is the danger of its inhabitants being entombed alive by night in the ruins of their own dwellings, that all the foreigners have a small sleeping-house in the rear of the one occupied by day. The walls of the larger one are usually of brick or stone, but those of the sleeping-house are always made of gaba-gaba, the dried midribs of large palm-leaves, which, when placed on end, will support a considerable weight, and yet are almost as light as cork. The roof is of atap, a thatching of dry palm-leaves, and the whole structure is therefore so light that no one would be seriously injured should it fall on its sleeping occupants. Such continual, torturing solicitude changes this place, fitted, by its fine climate, luxuriant vegetation, and beautiful scenery, for a paradise, into a perfect purgatory.
On the morning of the 12th of December we steamed out of the roads for Kema. Soon we passed near the southeast end of Ternate, and the commander pointed out to me a small lake only separated from the sea by a narrow wall, and informed me that when the Portuguese held the island they attempted to cut a canal through the wall or dike, and use this lake as a dock—certainly a very feasible plan; but for some reason, probably because they were so continually at war with their rivals, the Spaniards, they did not carry it out. This lake is said to be deep enough to float the largest ships, and is, I believe, nothing more than an old, extinct crater. On our larboard hand now was Mitarra, a steep volcanic cone as high as the Gunong Api at Banda, but appearing much smaller from being, as it were, beneath the lofty peak of Tidore. It also is of volcanic formation. We now came out into the Molucca Passage, and were steering west, and I could feel that at least my face was turned homeward, a thought sufficient to give any one a deep thrill of pleasure who had wandered so far.
The wind being ahead, and our vessel steaming slowly, we did not expect to see the opposite shore until the next day, much to my satisfaction, for it gave me a good opportunity to learn from the officers many particulars about the pirates in these seas. Piracy has probably existed among these islands ever since they were first peopled. It was undoubtedly plunder, and not trade, that stimulated the natives to attempt the first expedition that was ever made over these waters. Piracy is described in the earliest Malay romances, and spoken of by these natives, not as a failing of their ancestors, but as an occasion for glorying in their brave deeds. Such has also been the case in the most enlightened parts of the earth, when civilization and Christianity had made no further progress in those regions than it has here among the Malays. It has also been prevalent along the northern shores of Europe and the British Isles. The only reason that it was not a common practice among our Indians was because they had not made sufficient progress in the arts to construct large boats, and were obliged to confine their plundering expeditions to rivers and lakes, and could not sail on the stormy ocean.
Pirates have been as numerous on the coasts of China for centuries as they are now. Sometimes they have come to the Philippines and the northern parts of Borneo, but rarely or never among these islands. When the Europeans first came to the East, pirates abounded in every part of the archipelago, particularly in the Straits of Malacca, in the Sulu archipelago, between Borneo and Mindanao, and especially on the southern shores of the latter island. The establishment of a large port at Singapore by the English, and a settlement on Rhio by the Dutch, have quite scattered them from the former region, but they continue to infest the Sulu Sea and the southern part of the Philippines. They come down here in the middle of the western monsoon, that is, in January and February, and return in the beginning of the eastern monsoon, so as to have fair wind both ways, and be here during the calms that prevail in these seas in the changing of the monsoons, when the large number of oars they use enables them to attack their prey as they please. They appear to come mostly from the shores of Lanun Bay, on the south coast of Mindanao. From Dampier we learn that in 1686 they were an inland people. “The Hilanoones,” he says, “live in the heart of the country” (Mindanao). “They have little or no commerce by sea, yet they have praus that row with twelve or fourteen oars apiece. They enjoy the benefit of the gold-mines, and, with their gold, buy foreign commodities of the Mindanao people.” They are now the most daring pirates in these seas. Last year the man-of-war on this station had the good fortune to surprise five boats, one of them carrying as many as sixty men. At first they attempted to escape by means of their oars, but her shot and shell soon began to tear them to pieces. They then pulled in toward the shore and jumped overboard, but, by this time, they had come near a village, and the natives at once all turned out with their spears, the only weapons they had, and scoured the woods for these murderers until, as far as could be ascertained, not one of them was left alive. They seldom attack a European vessel, but, when they do and succeed, they take revenge for the severe punishment their countrymen receive from the Dutch war-ships, and not one white man is left to tell the tale of capture and massacre. The vessels that they prey on chiefly are the small schooners commanded by mestizoes and manned by Malays, which carry on most of the trade between the Dutch ports in these islands. One of those vessels was taken and destroyed by these murderers last year while sailing down the coast from Kema. The whites and mestizoes are always murdered, and the Malay crews are kept as slaves. While I was at Kema two Malays appeared at the house of the officer with whom I was residing, and said they were natives of a small village on the bay of Gorontalo; and that, while they were fishing, they had been captured by a fleet of pirates, who soon after set out on their homeward voyage; and, while the fleet was passing Sangir, a small island between the northern end of Celebes and Mindanao, they succeeded in escaping by jumping overboard and swimming a long distance to the shore. They had now reached Kema, on their voyage toward Gorontalo, and they came to the officer to apply for food, clothing, and some means of reaching their homes once more. Such cases are specially provided for by the Dutch Government, and their request was immediately granted. A few years ago these pirates sent a challenge to the Dutch fleet at Batavia to come and meet them in the Strait of Macassar, and several officers assured me that five ships were sent. When they arrived there no pirates were to be seen, but to this day all believe the challenge was a bona fide one, and that the only reason that the pirates were not ready to carry out their part was because more men-of-war appeared than they had anticipated. A short time after I arrived back at Batavia, a fleet of these plunderers was destroyed in that very strait. One chief, who was taken on the opposite coast of Borneo a few years ago, acknowledged that he had previously commanded two expeditions to the Macassar Strait, and that, though the Dutch war-ships had destroyed his fleet both times, he had been able to escape by swimming to the shore. At Kema I saw one of the five praus that were taken in that vicinity last year. It was an open boat about fifty feet long, twelve wide, and four deep. There were places for five oars on each side. At the bow and stern was a kind of deck or platform, and in the middle of each a small vertical post, on which was placed a long swivel, throwing a pound-ball. They do not, however, depend on these small cannon, but always get alongside a vessel as soon as possible, and then board her at the same moment on all sides in overpowering numbers. It is almost impossible to catch them unless it is done by surprise, and this they carefully guard against by means of spies on the shore. Our captain informed me that several times when he has suddenly appeared on some part of the adjacent coasts, fires have been instantly lighted on the tops of the neighboring hills, evidently as signals to pirates in the immediate vicinity. As soon as they receive this alarm they hide away in the shallow creeks and bays among the mangrove-trees, so that a war-vessel might steam past them again and again without discovering the slightest indication of where they are concealed. To the Dutch almost exclusively belongs the honor of having rendered the navigation of these seas so comparatively safe as it now is. The English have assisted in the western part of the archipelago, but the Spaniards, from whose territory these marauders now come, have effected little toward removing this pest from the Philippines, where it is as rife as it was two hundred years ago.