The fiord-like Bay of Ambon flows into the heart of the fragrant Clove
Island, between the peninsulas of Heitor and Léitemor, which gradually
ascend from the harbour's mouth until their heights of glowing green
merge into wooded mountains, behind the white town of Amboyna. This old
European settlement ranks as the tiny capital of the Molucca group.
_Praus_ and fishing smacks dot the blue inlet with tawny sails and
curving masts, the local craft varied by a fantastic barque from the
barbarous Ké isles, with pointed yellow beak and plume of crimson
feathers at the prow, suggesting some tropical bird afloat upon the
tide. The glossy darkness of the clove plantations enhances the paler
tints of the prevailing foliage, and the virginal tints of the sylvan
scenery indicate a climate of perpetual spring. Thatched roofs, and
walls of plaited palm-leaf, stand among white-washed cottages of coral
concrete, for low houses, or slight material, afford comparative
security against collapse by earthquake. The brown population throngs
the pier, and a little fleet of _dug-outs_ escorts the steamer through
the bay with gay songs and merry laughter, for the lively Ambonese
value every link that binds them to the outside world, and this is
their gala day. Bold, eager, craving for foreign intercourse, and
possessing the quickened intelligence due to the mixture of Dutch and
Portuguese blood with the native strain, a roving spirit of adventure
counteracts the lazy independence of a life where daily needs are
supplied without exertion. The sea swarms with fish, the woods teem
with sago, and cultivation of the clove procures extra wages when any
special purpose requires them. The Portuguese who colonised Ambon, in
the zenith of their maritime power, were of vigorous stock, and the
mental heritage of the island was permanently enriched by elements
derived from a foreign source.
The Ambonese soldiers of the Netherlands India manifest a courageous
and warlike character; their rate of payment equals that of their
European brothers-in-arms, and in the raids or skirmishes frequent
throughout the wild districts of Celebes and Sumatra they play a
spirited part. The burghers of Ambon show more of the Dutch element in
their composition. The island, Christianised in the dreary mode of
Calvinistic Holland, accepts in half-hearted fashion the creed so
incongruous with tropical Nature. Dutch missionaries, waging aimless
war against brightness and colour, arrayed their brown converts in
funereal gloom. The Sunday attire of the men consists of black calico
coats down to the heels, and flopping black trousers. The women wear a
shapeless gown of the same shabby and shiny material, with a white
scarf dangling from the left arm. These blots on the brilliancy of the
scene produce a curious impression when approaching the wharf, where
the native bronze of children and coolies, the blue robes of Chinamen,
and the gay turbans of Mohammedans, blend harmoniously with the scheme
of colour in flower and foliage. The _praus_ which follow in our wake
make ready the rustic Malay anchor, a forked branch of stout timber,
strengthened by twisted rattan, which also secures the stone
cross-piece. This relic of a distant past can scarcely have changed
since the days when the wandering tribe first launched upon the blue
waters of the Pacific, in that mysterious voyage which moulded the
destinies of the Malay race. A rudimental feeling for art co-exists
with imperfect civilisation, and elaborate carving adorns rude skiffs,
floats of fishing lines, and even wooden beaters of the clay used in
native pottery. A dervish, in turban of flaming orange and garb of
green and white, beats a huge drum in the pillared court of a large
mosque, for the followers of the Prophet are numerous, and though the
usual deadly conventicle occupies a conspicuous place, it produces no
effect on the Arab element. The son of the Dutch pastor who, after his
grim fashion, Christianised the former generation, proves better than
his condemnatory creed, and acts as personal conductor to the sights of
Amboyna. After a rest in the flower-wreathed verandah of his home, and
a chat with his kindly half-caste wife, we visit the gilded and
dragon-carved mansion of a leading Chinese merchant, friendly,
hospitable, and delighted to exhibit his household gods, both in
literal and figurative form. A visit to the Joss Temple follows,
liberally supported by this smiling Celestial, whose zeal and charity
may perchance plead for him in that purer sanctuary not made with
hands, and as yet unrevealed to his spiritual sight. The appalling
green and vermilion deities who guard the temple courts, indicate fear
as the chosen handmaid of faith in this grotesque travesty of religion,
but the costly tiling of violet and azure, the rich gilding of the
curling eaves terminating in scarlet dragons, and the deeply-chiselled
ebony, falling like a veil of thick black lace before the jade and
porphyry shrines, prove that even the despised Chinaman offers of his
best to the Divinity dimly apprehended by his darkened soul.
The large Malay School of Amboyna manifests an educational position in
advance of the smaller islands, and knowledge of the wider world
beyond the Archipelago stimulates the spirit of enterprise inherited in
different degrees and varying conditions, both from Malay and
Portuguese ancestry.
A dilapidated carriage is chartered with difficulty, as only three
vehicles belong to the island, and the driver evidently expects his
skeleton steed to collapse at any pace quicker than a walk. The green
lanes, with their hedges of scarlet hybiscus overhung by the feathery
foliage of tamarind and bamboo, wind along the shore, and penetrate
into the depths of the hills. Rustling sago-palms sway their tall
plumes on the mountain side, and shadow luxuriant clove gardens, their
pungent aroma mingling with nutmeg and cinnamon to steep the soft
sea-wind in a wealth of perfume. European houses of white stone nestle
among palm and tamarind, the broad seats flanking the central door, and
the bulging balconies of old Dutch style recalling the 16th century
dwellings on the canal banks of distant Holland, but the crow-stepped
gable here gives place to the flat roof. Every green garden contains a
refuge of interwoven _gaba-gaba_ stalks, as a retreat during
earthquakes, when the overthrow of the flimsy arbour would entail no
injury, though it serves as a shelter from the torrential rains which
often accompany volcanic disturbances. A wayside stall of palm-thatched
bamboo provides _sageroe_ for thirsty pilgrims. This fermented beverage
often excites the Ambonese nature to frenzy, though only made from the
juice of the _arên_ or sugar palm. The brown dame who presides over the
bamboo buckets, in her eagerness to honour a white customer, wipes an
incredibly dirty tumbler on her gruesome calico skirt before dipping
the precious glass into the foaming pail, and tastes the draught by way
of encouragement. With some difficulty she is induced to wash the
tumbler, and to omit the last reassuring ceremony. The _sageroe_, sweet
and refreshing, gains tonic properties from an infusion of quassia,
which sharpens the flavour and strengthens the compound, packed in
bamboo cases or plaited palm-leaf bags for transport to the
neighbouring islands. A grey fort, and weather-worn Government offices,
flank the green _aloon-aloon_ of Amboyna, surrounded by tamarind
avenues. The Dutch Resident finds ample employment, owing to the mania
for litigation among the Ambonese. The honour of appearing before a
Court of Justice is eagerly sought, and imaginary claims or grievances
are constantly invented in order to satisfy the ambition for publicity.
A modest and retiring temperament forms no part of native equipment,
and the slight veneer of Christianity, in the crudest phase of Dutch
Protestantism, increases the aggressive tendency. The missionary
agencies of Calvinistic Holland seem incapable of practical sympathy
with the island people; but half a loaf is better than no bread, and
in any form of Christian faith the Heavenly Husbandman scatters grains
of wheat among the tares, that all His wandering children may reap a
share of harvest gold even from a stubborn and sterile soil.
Amboyna shows signs of commercial prosperity in the crowded _passer_
and the busy Chinese _campong_, for the enterprising Celestial forms an
important element of the mercantile community in the Clove Island.
Three memorial tablets erected in front of the hoary fort, the bare
Dutch church, and the crumbling guard-house, record the worthy name of
Padrugge, a Dutch Governor who restored Amboyna after complete
destruction by a violent earthquake, that ever-haunting terror within
the great volcanic chain of the Malay Archipelago. The steep acclivity
behind the palm-shaded park of the Residency contains a stalactite
grotto, infested by a multitude of bats, which cling to the sparkling
pendants of the fretted roof, unless disturbed by the Ambonese coolies,
who regard them as culinary delicacies, and catch them in this ancient
breeding-place, with a noise which brings down the terrified creatures
into unwelcome proximity, cutting short any attempts at exploration,
and causing rash intruders to beat a hasty retreat.
In the hush of dawn, when the intensity of calm steals colour as well
as sound from the motionless waters, we embark on an expedition to the
_Zeetuinen_, or Sea Gardens, the fairy world of the coral reefs,
revealed through the magic mirror of the watery depths. As we gaze
steadily through the silvery blue of the glassy sea, a misty vision of
vague outline and shifting colour materialises into an enchanted
forest, and appears rising towards the surface. Coral trees, pink and
white, gold and green, orange and red, wave interlacing branches of
lace-like texture and varying form, above the blue water-ways which
divide the tremulous masses of rainbow-tinted foliage. The sinuous
channels expand at intervals into quiet pools, bordered with azure and
purple sea-stars, or studded with clumps of yellow lilies, spotted and
striped with carmine. A circle of rock, enclosing a miniature lake,
blazes with rose and scarlet anemones, and the boat, floating over the
wilderness of marine vegetation, pauses above a coral growth, varied in
form as any tropical woodland. Majestic trees, of amber and emerald
hue, stand with roots muffled in fading fern, or sunk in perforated
carpets of white sponge, and huge vegetable growths or giant weeds,
lustrous with metallic tints of green and violet, fill clefts and
ravines of coral rock. A grove of sea-palms mimics the features of the
upper world, as though Nature obeyed some mysterious law of form, lying
behind her operations, to regulate expression and bring order out of
chaos. Giant bunches of black and mauve grapes, like the pictured
spoils of the Promised Land, lie on soft beds of feathery moss, but the
familiar greens of the velvety carpet shade into orange and pink. A
weird marine plant shoves long black stems, crowned with a circle of
azure blue eyes, which convey an uncanny sensation of being regarded
with sleepless vigilance by mysterious sentinels, transformed and
spellbound in ocean depths. Tree-fern and hart's-tongue show verdant
fronds, flushed with autumnal red or gold, and a dense growth of starry
flowers suggests a bed of many-coloured tulips. Dazzling fish dart
through the crystal depths. A shoal of scarlet and green parrot-fish
pursue a tribe striped with blue and orange. Gold-fish flash like
meteors between uplifted spears of blood-red coral, and the glittering
scales of myriads, splashed with ruby, or flecked with amethyst,
reflect the colours of the gorgeously-frilled and rosetted anemones in
parterres between red coral crags. Tresses of filmy green floating from
the mouth of a cavern, suggest a mermaid's hair, and her visible
presence would scarcely add to the wonders in this under-world of
glamour and mystery. Shells, pink and pearly, brown and lilac, scarlet
and cobalt, strew the flower-decked floor with infinite variety,
concave and spiral, ribbed and fluted, fretted and jagged--the satin
smoothness of convoluted forms lying amid rugged shapes bristling with
spines and needles. We gaze almost with awe at the lovely vision of a
dainty Nautilus, sailing his fairy boat down a blue channel fringed
with purple and salmon-coloured anemones, beneath a hedge of rosy
coral. The shimmering sail and carven hull of iridescent pearl skim the
water with incredible swiftness, and tack skilfully at every bend of
the devious course, not even slackening speed to avoid collision with a
lumbering star-fish encountered on the way. These submarine Gardens
contain the greatest natural collection of anemones, coral beds,
shells, and fish, discovered in the ocean world. The richest treasures
of Davy Jones's Locker lie open to view, as the boat glides through the
ever-changing scenery mirrored in the transparent sea. Opalescent
berries resemble heaps of pearls, and the lemon stalks of marine sedge
gleam like wedges of gold in the crystalline depths. The long oars
detach pinnacles of coral like tongues of flame, and a cargo of
seaweed, shells, and anemones, fills the boat as each enchanted grotto
contributes a quota of treasure trove, but the vivid colouring fades
apace when the sea-born flora leaves the native element, and the deep
blue eyes, gazing from their dark stems with weird human effect, lose
their radiance in the upper world.
We land at the pretty valley of Halong, where a rippling brook
traverses a wood of sago-palms, and falls in a white cascade over the
rocks of a sheltered bathing-pool, screened by green curtains of banana
and tall mangosteens, laden with purple fruit. Makassar-trees rain
their yellow blossoms into the water, cloves fill the air with pungent
fragrance, and lychees droop over the clear current. A melancholy Malay
song floats up from the sea, but the sad sweet notes only accentuate
the haunted silence of the fairy glen, with an echo from that distant
past which breathes undying music round these enchanted isles. Woodland
shadows and wayside palms disclose the sweeping horse-shoe curves of
numerous Chinese tombs, the white stone elaborately carved and covered
with hieroglyphics. Plumy cocoanut and tremulous tamarind wave over the
last resting-places of these exiles from the Holy Land of the Celestial
Empire, for the second generation established on an alien soil is
forbidden to seek burial in China. The so-called _Paranak_ of the Malay
Archipelago frequently marries a native wife, and, as purity of race
becomes destroyed, ancestral obligations lose their power even over the
mind of the most conservative people in the world.
The woods of Ambon teem with the abundant bird-life peculiar to the
Moluccas. An exquisite kingfisher, with golden plumage and emerald
throat, darts across the stream, and the scarlet crests of green
parrots resemble tropical flowers, glowing amidst the verdant foliage
hardly distinguishable from the fluttering wings of the feathered
tribe, which includes twenty-two species indigenous to the islands.
The megapodius or mound-maker, an ash-coloured bird about the size of a
small fowl, grasps sand or soil in the hollow of a powerful claw, and
throws it backwards into mounds six feet high, wherein the eggs are
deposited, to be hatched by this natural incubator, through the heat of
the vegetable matter contained in the rubbish heap. The young birds
work their way through the mound, and run off at once into the forest,
where they start on an independent career. They emerge from their
birthplace covered with thick down and provided with fully-developed
wings. The maternal instinct of the megapodius ceases with the laying
of eggs, and, having supplied a safe cradle for the rising generation,
she takes no further thought for her precocious progeny, capable of
securing a livelihood in the unknown world from the moment of their
first appearance in public.
A merry group, half-hidden in the shadows of clustering sago-palms,
gathers the harvest of precious grain, the pith of a large tree
producing thirty bundles, each of thirty pounds weight. The baking of
the sago-cakes made from this lavish store occupies two women for five
days, and the housekeeping cares of the largest family only need
quarterly consideration in this island of plenty, where the struggle
for the necessaries of existence is unknown and unimaginable. Leisure
and liberty, those priceless gifts which can only be attained where
the pressure of poverty is unfelt, serve valuable purposes in Ambonese
hands, for the European energies fused into the native race prevent
mental stagnation, and spur tropical indolence to manifold activities.
A variety of thriving industries belong to this far-off colony.
Mother-of-pearl shells, and _bêche-de-mer_ (the sea-slug of Chinese
cuisine) supplement the important export of the cloves, the speciality
of Ambon, chosen by the East India Company as the sole place of
cultivation for this spice-bearing tree, when the system of monopoly
extirpated the clove gardens of the other islands. Vases, mats, and
miniature boats, of fringed and threaded cloves, are offered as
fantastic souvenirs of Amboyna, and the spirit of the place seems
imprisoned in these tiny curios which revive so many haunting memories
of the romantic island.
Nominal adherence to Dutch Calvinism fails to repress the natural
instincts of a gay and pleasure-loving race. The national dance known
as _Menari_, and often performed on the shore in honour of the outgoing
steamer, no longer satisfies Ambonese requirements, with the slow
gyrations and studied postures of Oriental tradition. The eager and
passionate temperament finds truer expression in the walzes and galops
of European origin, known as _dansi-dansi_, enthusiastically practised
on those festive occasions, when the full dress of funereal black and
white seems specially inappropriate to the wild abandon of the
merry-making populace. In sunny Amboyna the cowl does not make the
friar, and the last recollection of the little Moluccan capital is a
vision of whirling figures and twanging lutes at the water's edge,
while the receding steamer furrows the milky azure of the land-locked
bay. The vivid green of one palm-clad shore burns in the gold of
sunset, but the eastern side lies veiled in shadow, and as the
sheltered inlet gives place to the open sea, the luminous
phosphorescence of the Southern ocean bathes the rocky bastions of
enchanted Ambon in waves of liquid fire. A strange history belongs to
the physical conformation of volcanic shores, alternately raised and
depressed by the agitation of earth and sea. The coast-line has varied
from time to time; straits have become lakes, islands have severed or
united, occasionally rising suddenly from the waves, or vanishing in
the bosom of the deep. Geologists assert that the Malay Archipelago was
originally thrown off by volcanic action from Asia and Australia, and
that an interchange of animal and vegetable life has frequently taken
place. Hurricanes have uprooted forest trees, and floods have borne
them out to sea, the tide eventually washing them up on the shores of
distant islands. A fresh growth of foreign vegetation was thus
inaugurated, as these sylvan colonists struck their saplings into an
alien soil. Insects, preserved by the bark, propagated themselves in
new surroundings, and seeds drifting on the waves, or clinging to roots
and fibres, wreathed unfamiliar shores with exotic flowers. Animal
migration has frequently been caused by natural catastrophes, and to
birds directing their swift flight by faculties now attributed to keen
observation rather than to unreasoning instinct, the change of locality
was infinitely simplified. In the Moluccas we may read a compendium of
the wide-spread history which applies to the vast regions comprised in
the mighty Archipelago. The doctrine of earthly changes and chances,
too often accepted as a mere figure of speech, is here recognised as a
stern reality; the tragedies of destruction repeat themselves through
the ages, the laboratories of Nature eternally forge fresh
thunderbolts, and the fate of humanity trembles in the balance.
Meanwhile a profusion of flowers wreathes the sacrificial altars, the
fairest fruits ripen above the thin veil which hides the fountains of
volcanic fire, and the sweetest spices of the world breathe incense on
the air. The uncertain tenure of earthly joys gives them redoubled zest
and poignancy, the passionate love of life becomes intensified by the
looming shadows of Death, and the light glows with clearer radiance
against the blackness of the menacing thunder-cloud.