TERNATE, TIDORE, AND GILOLO.
As we steamed out of the bay of Kayéli a heavy rain came on, for the
rainy season, which had been prevailing on the south side of Buru, was
now beginning on the north side.
The same alternation of seasons is seen in Ceram. When I was on the south
side of that island, there was one continuous rain; but when I came soon
after to Wahai on the north coast, the grass was dry, and in many places
completely parched. The cause of this interchange of seasons is, that
the clouds which come up from the southeast are heavily charged with
moisture, and when they strike against the high mountain-chain which
extends from the eastern to the western end of that island, the larger
part of their moisture is condensed and falls in heavy torrents, so that
when they pass over the water-shed they pour out few or no showers.[43]
When the wind changes and comes from the northeast, the north sides of
Ceram and Buru are deluged, while it is dry weather on their southern
coasts.
When we were three miles from the northern end of Buru, we struck into a
series of tide-rips, exactly like those seen in the middle of the South
Atlantic Ocean, hundreds and hundreds of miles from any shore. Night
now came on, and it was so dark and thick that we could not see fifty
yards in any direction. It is especially at such a time, when there is
no moon, no stars, no light in the whole heavens, except the lightning
which fitfully darts and flashes anywhere and everywhere over the sky,
that one can feel the inestimable value of the mariner’s compass. That
night we had much rough sea, and I was thankful that I was on a good
steamer instead of the old prau on which I had been expecting to make
this voyage. In the afternoon of the next day we passed the islands of
Bachian and Tawali, which are heaved up into ridges about a thousand feet
in height, and are separated by a long, narrow strait, abounding in the
grandest scenery. On Bachian the clove-tree grows wild. The northern part
of the island is of sedimentary origin of various ages, and there some
coal and copper have been found, and gold has been washed since 1774.
The southern part of the island is chiefly of volcanic origin. North of
Bachian lies a small group of islands, and north of these Makian, an old
volcano. In 1646 it underwent a fearful eruption, and all the villages
on its flanks were destroyed. They were said to contain a population of
some seven thousand. At that time the whole mountain was so completely
split in two in a northeast and southwest direction, that when viewed
from either of those points two peaks were seen. After this destruction
it was again settled, and in 1855 its population numbered six thousand.
In 1862 it again burst forth, destroying nearly every one on the whole
island. So great a quantity of ashes was thrown out, that at Ternate,
about forty miles distant, they covered the ground to the depth of from
three to four inches, and nearly all the vegetation, except the large
trees, was destroyed. A similar devastation caused the severest suffering
within all that radius. But this eruption, fearful as it was, could not
be compared to that of Mount Tomboro, already described.
North of Makian is Motir, a deep cone of trachytic lava, about one
thousand feet in height. During the next night we passed between the
high, sharp peak of Tidore on the right and that of Ternate on the left,
and, entering a large, well-sheltered bay, anchored off the village,
situated on the eastern declivity of the latter mountain. This morning
as the sun rose the scene was both charming and imposing—imposing,
while we looked upward to the lofty summit of this old volcano and
watched the clouds of white gas rising in a perpendicular column high
into the sky, until they came up to a level where the air was moving,
and at once spread out into a broad, horizontal band, while the sun
was pouring down a perfect flood of bright light over the high crest
of the ancient peak and the city on its flanks; charming as we looked
below the level water-line on the shore, and beheld the whole grand
sight above, perfectly mirrored beneath in the quiet sea. This was the
first mountain, whose flanks are cultivated, that I had seen since
leaving Java. Many small ridges extend from its crest part way down its
sides, and then spread out into little plateau-like areas; and there
the natives have cleared away the luxuriant shrubbery and formed their
gardens, and from them were rising small columns of smoke as if from
sacrificial altars. The whole island is merely a high volcano, whose base
is beneath the ocean. Its circumference at the shore line is about six
miles, and its height five thousand four hundred feet. From Valentyn,
Reinwardt, Bleeker, and Junghuhn, we learn that severe and destructive
eruptions took place in 1608, 1635, and 1653. In 1673 another occurred,
and a considerable quantity of ashes was carried even to Amboina. Then,
for one hundred and sixty-five years, only small clouds of gas rose
from the summit—not even hot stones were thrown out, and the mountain
seemed to have undergone its last labor, when, on the 26th of February,
1838, another but not a severe eruption took place. This, however, came
suddenly—so suddenly that, of a party of six natives who chanced to be
on the summit collecting sulphur, four who had gone down into the crater
did not have time to escape, and the two who remained on its edge only
saved themselves by hastening down the mountain; and even they were badly
burned and lacerated by the showers of hot stones. On the 25th of March,
of the next year, a more violent eruption occurred. A heavy thundering
roared in the earth, thick clouds of ashes enveloped the whole island,
and streams of glowing lava flowed down the mountain. Again, the next
year, on the 2d of February, at nine o’clock in the forenoon, a third
eruption, yet more severe, began. Heavier thundering was heard, smoke and
ashes poured out, and hot stones rose from the crater, and fell like hail
on the sides of the volcano, setting fire to the dense wood which had
completely spread over it during its long rest, and causing it to assume
the appearance by night of a mountain of flame. At the same time much
lava poured out over the crater on the north side, and flowed down to the
sea between Fort Toluko and Batu Angus, “the Hot Stone.” This destruction
continued for twenty-four hours, and at four o’clock the next day all was
still. During the next ten days clouds of black smoke continued to pour
out, but all trusted that the worst had passed, when, on the 14th, at
half-past twelve or almost exactly at midnight, a “frightful, unearthly
thundering” began again, and the shocks became heavier and more frequent
until half-past three (before it would have been light if the sky had
been clear), when the last house in the whole place had been laid in
ruins. The earth split open with a cracking that could be distinctly
heard above the awful thundering of the mountain. Out of the fissures
jets of hot water rose for a moment, and then the earth closed again,
to open in another place. An educated gentleman, who, from his great
wealth, generosity, and liberality, is justly known as the “Prince of the
Moluccas,” assured me that when two men were about one thousand yards
apart, one would see the other rise until his feet seemed as high as the
head of the observer, then immediately he would sink and the observer
rise until he seemed as much above his fellow as he had been below him
before. The published accounts entirely agree with this statement. For
fifteen hours the solid ground thus rolled like the sea, but the heaviest
wave did not occur till ten o’clock on the 15th of February. Fort Orange,
which had withstood all the shocks of two hundred and thirty years, was
partly thrown down, and wholly buried under a mass of pumice-stone and
the _débris_ of the forests above it. The people, as soon as this last
day of destruction commenced, betook themselves to their boats, for,
while the land was heaving like a troubled ocean, the sea continued
quiet; no great wave came in to complete the work of destruction on the
shore. It seemed, indeed, as if the laws that govern these two great
elements had been suddenly exchanged, and the fixed land had become the
mobile sea. The whole loss caused by this devastating phenomenon was
estimated at four hundred thousand Mexican dollars; and yet, after all
this experience, so great was the attachment of both foreigners and
natives to this particular spot, that they would not select some one
less dangerous on the neighboring shores, but all returned and once more
began to build their houses for another earthquake to lay in the dust,
proving that the common remark in regard to them is literally true, that
“they are less afraid of fire than the Hollanders are of water.” The
present city, however, judging by the area of the ruins, is not more
than two-thirds the size of the former one. Its total population is
about 9,000. Of these, 100 are Europeans, 300 mestizoes, 200 Arabs, 400
Chinese, and the others natives of this and the adjoining islands. It is
divided into two parts, the southern or European quarter, known by the
peculiar name Malayu, and north of this the Chinese and Arab quarter.
Near the latter is Fort Orange, which was built in 1607, as early as
the settlement of Jamestown. In 1824 this fort was pronounced by the
governor-general the best in all the Netherlands India. Beyond the fort
is “the palace” of the Sultan of Ternate, and north of this is the native
village. The palace is a small residence, built in the European style,
and stands on a terrace, facing a wide, beautiful lawn, that descends to
the sea. Near it is a flag-staff, which leans over as if soon to fall,
a fit emblem of the decaying power of its owner, whose ancestors were
once so mighty as to make the Dutch regard them with fear as well as with
respect.
According to Valentyn, who gathered his information from the native
records, there were formerly in Gilolo a number of independent states,
each with its “kolano” or chief. In about A. D. 1250, two hundred and
seventy years before any European sailed in these seas, a great migration
took place to the neighboring islands, and a village named Tabona was
formed on the top of this mountain, which has been an active volcano
ever since it was known to Europeans. In A. D. 1322, many Javanese and
Arabs came here to buy cloves. This is the first historical record we
have of the spice-trade. The inhabitants of Obi and Bachian now united
to counteract the growing power of the prince of Ternate, but this union
effected little, for, in A. D. 1350, Molomateya, who was then reigning
at Ternate, learned from the Arabs how to build vessels, and, having
prepared a fleet, conquered the Sula Islands. The Arabs and Javanese
meantime made great exertions to convert these people to Mohammedanism,
and in A. D. 1460,[44] a little more than two centuries after it had been
introduced into Java, Mahum, the prince of Ternate, became a Mohammedan
“through the influence of the Javanese.” About this time Malays and
Chinese came from Banda to purchase cloves, which they sold to Indian
traders at Malacca. In 1512 Francisco Serano, whose vessel struck on
the Turtle Islands, when returning with D’Abreu from Amboina and Banda,
induced the natives to assist him in getting his ship afloat while the
rest of the fleet were returning to Malacca, and to pilot him to Ternate;
and thus he was the first European who reached the great centre of the
clove-trade. In 1521 the fleet of Magellan anchored off Tidore, an island
separated from Ternate by only a narrow strait.
Ferdinand Magellan, who organized this fleet, was a Portuguese nobleman.
He sailed, however, under the patronage of Charles V. of Spain. On
the 20th of September, 1519, he left the port of St. Lucas with “five
small ships of from sixty to one hundred and thirty tons,” his object
being to find a _western_ passage to the Indies, particularly the Spice
Islands. Coasting southward along the shores of Brazil, he found the
strait which still continues to bear his name. This he passed through
with three ships, one having been wrecked, and one having turned back.
For one hundred and sixteen days he continued sailing in a northwest
direction, over (as it seemed to them) an endless ocean. Their food
became exhausted, but they yet kept on the same course until at last
their eyes were blessed with the sight of land. Pigafetta, a member of
this expedition, thus pictures their sufferings: “On Wednesday, the 28th
day of November, 1520, we issued from the strait, engulfing ourselves
in the ocean, in which, without comfort or consolation of any kind, we
sailed for three months and twenty days. We ate biscuit which was biscuit
no longer, but a wormy powder, for the worms had eaten the substance,
what remained being fetid with the urine of rats and mice. The dearth was
such that we were compelled to eat the leathers with which the yards of
the ships were protected from the friction of the ropes. This leather,
too, having been long exposed to the sun, rain, and wind, had become so
hard that it was necessary to soften it by immersion in the sea for four
or five days, after which it was broiled on the embers and eaten. We had
to sustain ourselves by eating sawdust, and a rat was in such request
that one was sold for half a ducat.”
The first islands Magellan saw were those he named the Ladrones or
“Islands of Thieves.”[45] From those he came to the Philippines, and on
one of these (Mactan, near Zebu) he was murdered by the natives, as
was also Barbosa, a gentleman of Lisbon, who had previously visited and
described India, and from whose writings we have frequently had occasion
to quote. From Zebu, Magellan’s companions sailed to the northern part of
Borneo and Tidore. Thence they continued southward, touching at Bachian
and Timur, in 1522, and finally arrived safely back in Spain, having
completed the first circumnavigation of our globe. This great voyage
was accomplished nearly a century before the Pilgrims landed on our
New-England shores. Soon after the Portuguese had established themselves
at Ternate, they began to teach the natives their Catholic creed, and in
1535 the native king, who had accepted that religion and been christened
at Goa, returned to Ternate and began his reign. Other native princes
then proposed to the Portuguese to become Catholics, if they would
take them under their protection, and thus Catholicism began to spread
rapidly, but the same year all the native converts were destroyed by
Mohammedans, headed by Cantalino, who was styled “the Moluccan Vesper.”
In 1546, Francis Xavier,[46] a Catholic priest, visited Ternate. He
afterward went back to Malacca and proceeded to China and Japan, and
returning from the latter country died on an island off Macao, near
Canton. The Dutch first came to Ternate under Admiral Houtman, in 1578.
In 1605, under Stephen van der Hagen, they stormed and took Ternate, and
thus drove the Portuguese out of the Moluccas, and the island, since
that date, has continued in their hands, the English not being able to
capture it during the early part of this century, when they took Amboina
and the neighboring islands. They now continued their strenuous attempts
to dislodge the Spaniards from their stronghold on Tidore, until the
besieged, finding themselves constantly in danger, deserted the whole
Moluccas to the Dutch in 1664.
As the Portuguese and Spaniards had been anxious to convert the
natives to Catholicism, so the Dutch were anxious to convert them to
Protestantism, but they did not, however, labor in the same manner as
the former. Pigafetta informs us that in eight days “all the inhabitants
of this island” (Zebu, one of the Philippines) “were baptized, and also
some of the other neighboring islands. In one of the latter we set fire
to a village” (because the inhabitants would neither obey the king of
Zebu nor Magellan). “Here we planted a wooden cross, as the people were
Gentiles. Had they been Moors” (Arabs), “we should have erected a stone
column, in token of their hardness of heart, for the Moors were more
difficult of conversion than the Gentiles.” In three days after this
conversion, these very natives murdered Magellan, and in twelve days more
they waylaid and butchered twenty-four of his companions. The natives
were first instructed in Protestant doctrines by teachers in 1621, and
in 1623 the first Protestant clergyman came into the Moluccas. This
faith has made little progress, however, and, except the inhabitants of
Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, and small communities at the chief places
of Amboina and Ternate, the whole native population east of Celebes is
either Mohammedan or heathen.
The islands on which the clove-tree grew spontaneously, and the ones
originally known as “the Moluccas,” are Ternate, Tidore, Motir, Makian,
and Bachian, which are situated in a row off the west coast of the
southern half of Gilolo. Of this group Tidore and Bachian, only,
belong to the prince of Ternate, and the Dutch East India Company, in
order to make the monopoly they already enjoyed more perfect, offered
this prince a yearly sum of seventeen thousand four hundred guilders,
nearly seven thousand dollars, for the privilege of destroying all
the clove and nutmeg trees they could find in his wide territory; for
besides these five islands and other smaller ones near them, and also
the adjoining coast of Gilolo, where the clove-tree was indigenous, it
had been introduced by the natives themselves into Ceram, Buru, and
Amboina, before the arrival of the Portuguese. This offer the prince
accepted in 1652, perhaps because he could not refuse longer. From that
date his power began to decline, and in 1848 he was unable to make the
people of the little island of Makian acknowledge his sovereignty,
which once extended from north of Gilolo to Buton and Muna south of
Celebes, a distance of six hundred geographical miles. His empire also
included the western coast of Celebes; and the islands that lie between
it and Bachian, Buru, and a large part of Ceram, and one-half the area
of Gilolo, were within its limits. For a long time expeditions were
fitted out every year by the Dutch, to search each island anew, and
destroy all the trees which had sprung up from seed planted by birds.
Another such piece of selfishness it would be difficult to find in all
history. The result of this agreement and this policy has been that,
for a considerable number of years, the income of the government in the
Moluccas and Bandas, taken together, has not been nearly equal to its
expenses in these islands; and it is now evident to all that very much
has been lost by this ungenerous and exclusive mode of trade.
On landing at this village I found a pleasant residence with a good
English lady, the second it had been my good fortune to meet since
I left Java. After living so long among a people speaking another
language, it is a privilege indeed to hear one’s native tongue spoken
without a foreign accent, and to converse with a person whose religion,
education, and views of life accord with one’s own. On these outer
borders of civilization, Americans and Englishmen are—as we ought to be
everywhere—members of the same family.
The same afternoon, as it was clear, I rode with an officer up the
mountain to a summer-house, two thousand four hundred feet above the sea.
From this high position we had a fine view over the wide bay of Dodinga,
formed by the opposite re treating coast of Gilolo. High mountains
are seen to rise in the interior, and several of these are said to be
volcanoes, either active or extinct. In the northern part of the island,
opposite the island of Morti, the Resident informed me that there was a
crater which, according to the accounts given him by the officials who
had visited it, must be nearly as large as the famous one in the Tenger
Mountains on Java. On Morti itself is Mount Tolo, which suffered a severe
eruption in the previous century. Before that time Morti was said to be
well peopled, but now only the natives of the adjoining coast of Gilolo,
who are most notorious pirates, stay there from time to time.
A large number of the natives of Gilolo were then here at Ternate.
Though frequently called “Alfura,” they are strictly of the Malay type,
and have not the dark skin and frizzly hair of the Alfura of Ceram and
Buru, though representatives of that people may exist in other parts
of Gilolo. Of the whole population of Gilolo, which is supposed to be
about twenty-seven thousand, all but five thousand are under the Sultan
of Ternate. During the war in Java, from 1825 to 1830, the sultan sent
a considerable force of his subjects to assist the Dutch, and those who
were then at Ternate had been ordered to come over to hold themselves
in readiness to aid in suppressing the revolt in Ceram, for the Dutch
believe in the motto “cut diamond with diamond.” These natives appear
to be quite as mild as most Malays, but the foreigners here say that
they fought so persistently while in Java, that soon they were styled
“the bloodhounds of Gilolo.” A small number of Papuans are also seen in
the village. They were mostly brought here from Papua by the fleet that
collects the yearly tribute for the Sultan of Tidore. While I was at
Amboina a very unfavorable account of them was given by a native captain
of Macassar, who had been taken prisoner near this place. According
to his report to the government, when he returned, all his crew was
seized and eaten one after another, and the only thing that saved him
from a like fate was that he read parts of the Koran. This led them to
believe him a priest, and finally induced them to allow him to depart
on the next vessel that came to their shores. East of Geelvink Bay two
Dutch expeditions have found that the whole population, men, women, and
children, always go absolutely naked.
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.