A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13

by Robert Kerr

Many of these stones are so large, that it is difficult to conceive by what means they were brought to their present station, especially as it is the summit of a hill; but the world is full of memorials of human strength, in which the mechanical powers that have been since added by mathematical science, seem to be surpassed; and of such monuments there are not a few among the remains of barbarous antiquity in our own country, besides those upon Salisbury plain.

These stones not only record the reigns of successive princes, but serve for a purpose much more extraordinary, and probably altogether peculiar to this country. When a raja dies, a general feast is proclaimed throughout his dominions, and all his subjects assemble round these stones: Almost every living creature that can be caught is then killed, and the feast lasts for a less or greater number of weeks or months, as the kingdom happens to be more or lets furnished with live stock at the time; the stones serve for tables. When this madness is over, a fast must necessarily ensue, and the whole kingdom is obliged to subsist upon syrup and water, if it happens in the dry season, when no vegetables can be procured, till a new stock of animals can be raised from the few that have escaped by chance, or been preserved by policy from the general massacre, or can be procured from the neighbouring kingdoms. Such, however, is the account that we received from Mr Lange.

We had no opportunity to examine any of their manufactures, except that of their cloth, which they spin, weave, and dye; we did not indeed see them employed, but many of the instruments which they use fell in our way. We saw their machine for clearing cotton of its seeds, which is made upon the same principles as those in Europe, but is so small that it might be taken for a model, or a toy: It consists of two cylinders, like our round rulers, somewhat less than an inch in diameter, one of which, being turned round by a plain winch, turns the other by means of an endless worm; and the whole machine is not more than fourteen inches long, and seven high: That which we saw had been much used, and many pieces of cotton were hanging about it, so that there is no reason to doubt its being a fair specimen of the rest. We also once saw their apparatus for spinning; it consisted of a bobbin, on which was wound a small quantity of thread, and a kind of distaff filled with cotton; we conjectured therefore that they spin by hand, as the women of Europe did before the introduction of wheels; and I am told that they have not yet found their way into some parts of it. Their loom seemed to be in one respect preferable to ours, for the web was not stretched upon a frame, but extended by a piece of wood at each end, round one of which the cloth was rolled, and round the other the threads: The web was about half a yard broad, and the length of the shuttle was equal to the breadth of the web, so that probably their work goes on but slowly. That they dyed this cloth we first guessed from its colour, and from the indigo which we saw in their plantations; and our conjecture was afterwards confirmed by Mr Lange's account. I have already observed, that it is dyed in the yarn, and we once saw them dying what was said to be girdles for the women, of a dirty red, but with what drug we did not think it worth while to enquire.

The religion of these people, according to Mr Lange's information, is an absurd kind of paganism, every man chusing his own god, and determining for himself how he should be worshipped; so that there are almost as many gods and modes of worship as people. In their morals, however, they are said to be irreproachable, even upon the principles of Christianity: No man is allowed more than one wife; yet an illicit commerce between the sexes is in a manner unknown among them: Instances of theft are very rare; and they are so far from revenging a supposed injury by murder, that if any difference arises between them, they will not so much as make it the subject of debate, lest they should be provoked to resentment and ill-will, but immediately and implicitly refer it to the determination of their king.

They appeared to be a healthy and long-lived people; yet some of them were marked with the small-pox, which Mr Lange told us had several times made its appearance among them, and was treated with the same precaution as the plague. As soon as a person was seized with the distemper, he was removed to some solitary place, very remote from any habitation, where the disease was left to take its course, and the patient supplied with daily food by reaching it to him at the end of a long pole.

Of their domestic economy we could learn but little: In one instance, however, their delicacy and cleanliness are very remarkable. Many of us were ashore here three successive days, from a very early hour in the morning till it was dark; yet we never saw the least trace of an offering to Cloacina, nor could we so much as guess where they were made. In a country so populous this is very difficult to be accounted for, and perhaps there is no other country in the world where the secret is so effectually kept.

The boats in use here are a kind of proa.

This island was settled by the Portugueze almost as soon as they first found their way into this part of the ocean; but they were in a short time supplanted by the Dutch. The Dutch however did not take possession of it, but only sent sloops to trade with the natives, probably for provisions to support the inhabitants of their spice islands, who, applying themselves wholly to the cultivation of that important article of trade, and laying out all their ground in plantations, can breed few animals: Possibly their supplies by this occasional traffic were precarious; possibly they were jealous of being supplanted in their turn; but however that be, their East India Company, about ten years before, entered into a treaty with the rajas, by which the Company stipulated to furnish each of them with a certain quantity of silk, fine linen, cutlery ware, arrack, and other articles, every year; and the rajas engaged that neither they nor their subjects should trade with any person except the Company, without having first obtained their consent, and that they would admit a resident on behalf of the Company, to reside upon the island, and see that their part of the treaty was fulfilled: They also engaged to supply annually a certain quantity of rice, maize, and calevances. The maize and calevances are sent to Timor in sloops, which are kept there for that purpose, each of which is navigated by ten Indians; and the rice is fetched away annually by a ship which brings the Company's returns, and anchors alternately in each of the three bays. These returns are delivered to the rajas in the form of a present, and the cask of arrack they and their principal people never cease to drink, as long as a drop of it remains. In consequence of this treaty, the Dutch placed three persons upon the island: Mr Lange, his colleague, the native of Timor, the son of an Indian woman by a Portuguese, and one Frederick Craig, the son of an Indian woman by a Dutchman. Lange visited each of the rajas once in two months, when he made the tour of the island, attended by fifty slaves on horseback. He exhorted these chiefs to plant, if it appeared that they had been remiss, and observed where the crops were got in, that he might order sloops to fetch it; so that it passed immediately from the ground to the Dutch store-houses at Timor. In these excursions he always carried with him some bottles of arrack, which he found of great use in opening the hearts of the rajas, with whom he had to deal.

During the ten years that he had resided upon this island he had never seen a European besides ourselves, except at the arrival of the Dutch ship, which had sailed about two months before we arrived; and he was to be distinguished from the natives only by his colour and his dress, for he sate upon the ground, chewed his betel, and in every respect adopted their character and manners: He had married an Indian woman of the island of Timor, who kept his house after the fashion of her country; and he gave that as a reason for not inviting us to visit him, saying, that he could entertain us in no other manner than the Indians had done, and he spoke no language readily but that of the country.

The office of Mr Frederick Craig was to instruct the youth of the country in reading and writing, and the principles of the Christian religion; the Dutch having printed versions of the New Testament, a catechism, and several other tracts, in the language of this and the neighbouring islands. Dr Solander, who was at his house, saw the books, and the copy-books also, of his scholars, many of whom wrote a very fair hand. He boasted that there were no less than six hundred Christians in the township of Seba; but what the Dutch Christianity of these Indians may be, it is not perhaps very easy to guess, for there was not a church, nor even a priest, in the whole island.