chiefly in some few yams, cocoa nuts, betel nuts, and plantain trees,
which are planted here and there, in the neighbourhood of their own
places, by the Ceramers. The land does not seem to bring forth any wild
plants; the inhabitants live on leaf zajor,[25] roots of trees and
herbs, but the bread of the Moluccas, in general called sagou, is not
produced here, as far as I could learn. Only one sort of it is brought
here by the Ceramers for their own provision, and also for barter. Fish
of all sorts is everywhere so plentiful along the shore that they may be
caught with the greatest ease in uncommon abundance; but they want nets
and other fishing tackle, though they supply this defect in a masterly
manner by their art in making their fish baskets, in which, at each
spring tide, numbers of fish are caught. It is not known that any large
animals are found here, except hogs, which are plentiful; but vermin,
and in particular snakes, scorpions, and millepedes, are here in great
numbers.
“The woods are filled with a variety of birds, making all day such an
uncommon noise that it is really astonishing. They are seldom, if ever,
shot by the inhabitants, as is sufficiently shown by their uncommon
tameness; for, one being shot, the other remains sitting next to it. But
our sportsmen must be careful in not entering too far into the woods,
for the Papoos imitate the birds very accurately, in order to trepan and
murder them, which has happened several times.
“They covet hatchets, cloaths, and beads, which are bartered for slaves.
When a slave is sold, they cut off a lock of his hair, believing that in
doing this they shall have more slaves. Those slaves are either
prisoners of war, or trepanned in the woods; many of them are sold in
Ternate and thereabouts. At the first they are so greedy in their eating
that they would nearly burst, if not checked in their gluttony.
“The heathens of Nova Guinea and Hollandia Nova believe there is some
divinity in the serpent, for which reason they represent them upon their
vessels.
“The following is an extract from a letter written to me from Amboina,
as an account of New Guinea and Hollandia Nova, otherwise called the
South Land.
“‘The inhabitants of all New Guinea are a tall, ugly, and misshapen
people, not so much by nature as choice; for they cut their nostrils
asunder, that you may nearly see into their throats, from which it may
be conceived what fine faces those must be, after having their
promontories demolished in this manner. They go mostly naked, except
those who live upon the islands, who, by their intercourse with the
Ceram Lauers, are become a little more polished. Of them they get some
little clothing, with which they cover themselves, though but scantily;
but on the continent they are altogether a savage barbarous people, who
can on no account be trusted. They are addicted to thieving and murder,
so that the Ceram Lauers cannot trade with them except at a distance.
They lay their goods down upon the beach, being put up in heaps, when
the most venturesome among the strange traders comes forward and makes
it understood by gestures and signs how much he wants for them. Their
commerce consists in Tamboxe swords, axes to cut the trees down with,
bad cloths, sagoe-bread, rice, and black sugar; but the rice and black
sugar must be given beforehand, to induce them to trade. No traces of
government, order, or religion are discernible amongst them. They live
together like beasts: those upon the islands erect houses, and a kind of
villages, placing their houses commonly upon posts, raised to a
considerable height above the ground. On the continent they have slight
huts, covered with leaves, like hog-styes: in them lie indiscriminately
men, dogs, and hogs, upon the bare sand, otherwise they lie down in any
place where they can but find white sand. They mourn more for the loss
of a dog or hog than for their mothers. They bury their dead hogs and
dogs, but not their deceased relations, whom they lay down upon high
rocks to decay under the rain and sun, till nothing remains but the
white bones, which at length they bury when they think proper. Their
food consists chiefly of fishes, with which their seas abound, and of
yams and plantains. They have no sagoe trees, neither do they know how
to prepare the bread from it if they had any. Their arms are hasagays,
clumsy and long arrows, and also a weapon formed from a sort of blue
stone or slate, pointed at both ends, having a hole in the middle, in
which a stick is put for a handle. With this they attack one another in
such a manner, that with one stroke the skull is crushed to pieces: the
farther you go to the south the more savage, tall, and ugly the people
are, in particular from Lacca-iha to Oero-goba.
“‘A certain shallop from Banda, being on the coast, which stretches
nearly east from Arou, they found there such large people, that one of
our sailors was taken by his sleeve by one of them and shaken like a
little boy; but he was rescued by his shipmates. To the south of this
place a great promontory stretches itself to the west, called in the map
Cape Falso, and again, to the south of this, is laid down the shallow
bight, where it is supposed that Nova Guinea is divided from the South
Land by a strait terminating in the South Sea, though, by reason of the
shallowness, our people could not pass it; and thus it remains uncertain
whether this strait goes through or not, but in the old Portuguese maps
New Guinea is laid down as an island under the name of Ceira.[26]
“‘I must here remark a circumstance which is but little noticed in
European writings, which is, that in some logbooks the sea between Banda
and the South Land is called the Milk Sea; the reason for this is, that
twice a-year the sea thereabouts turns white, and is called by our
people the white water. The so-called _little_ white water comes first,
with a dark or new moon, in the latter end of June; the _great_ or
second white water also comes in with a similar dark moon in August,
sooner or later according as the south-east wind sets in fresh. This
wind at that time brings with it in those parts unsettled rainy weather.
By daytime the sea looks natural, but in the night as white as milk or
snow, and so bright that it is nearly impossible to distinguish the
water from the sky. At that time it is dangerous to navigate here in
small vessels, the sea making, even in calm weather, a great swell,
which, from the brightness of the water, cannot be discovered before
they reach it. This white water comes first entirely from the
south-east, about where lie the islands of Babba, Tenimmer, and Timor
Laut, and, perhaps, wholly from that great bay made by the South Land
and New Guinea. It continues thus till September, when it is gradually
carried by the wind and currents towards the west, in large broad
stripes, passing by Amboina and Boero till about Bouton, when it
gradually loses itself; this water keeps itself always distinct from the
sea water, as if it were divided by a band, a fact which often frightens
inexperienced sailors at night, as they think they are running suddenly
upon a great bank. No one has yet been able to explain this wonder of
nature, nor give the cause of this quality of the water to glitter at
night. It is thought most probable that it arises from sulphurous
exhalations from the bottom of the sea, rising in this rough weather to
the surface; for that it is impregnated with sulphur is shown to be
likely by the number of sulphur mountains and volcanos found every where
in the south-eastern islands, and which, perhaps, exist in greater
number in the South Land. All this, however, is as yet uncertain;
perhaps the chemists might be able to supply some explanation upon the
subject, as they have the art of preparing waters which give light in
the night time.
“‘It may also here be asked, what countries are Lucach, Beach, and
Maletur, names inscribed in some of our maps, on some parts of that
country which we call South Land, or Hollandia Nova. I reply that these
names are, perhaps, taken from the uncertain and ambiguous narratives of
voyages by Marcus Paulus and Vertomannus, who, perhaps, being led astray
by the relations of others, have taken the large island of Timor for the
South Land; for in Timor the traces of the word Maletur remain in
Maleto, situated near Keylako, on the north side of Timor.’ Thus far the
above-mentioned letter.”
ACCOUNT OF THE OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER ON THE COAST OF
NEW HOLLAND, IN 1687–88,
BEING AN EXTRACT FROM HIS “NEW VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD,” PUBLISHED IN
LOND., 1697, 8vo., pp. 461.
Being now clear of all the islands, we stood off south, intending to
touch at New Holland, a part of Terra Australis Incognita, to see what
that country would afford us. Indeed, as the winds were, we could not
now keep our intended course (which was first westerly and then
northerly) without going to New Holland, unless we had gone back again
among the islands; but this was not a good time of the year to be among
any islands to the south of the equator, unless in a good harbour.
The 31st day we were in latitude 13° 26´, still standing to the
southward, the wind bearing commonly very hard at west, and we keeping
upon it under two courses, and our myen, and sometimes a main-top-sail
rift. About ten a clock at night we tackt and stood to the northward,
for fear of running on a shoal, which is laid down in our drafts in
latitude 13° 50´ or thereabouts: it bearing south by west from the east
end of Timor: and so the island bore from us by our judgments and
reckoning. At three a clock we tackt again, and stood S. by W. and
S.S.W.
In the morning, as soon as it was day, we saw the shoal right ahead: it
lies in 13° 50´ by all our reckonings. It is a small spit of land, just
appearing above the water’s edge, with several rocks about it, 8 or 10
feet above high water. It lies in a triangular form, each side being
about a league and a half. We stemm’d right with the middle of it, and
stood within half a mile of the rocks, and sounded; but found no ground.
Then we went about and stood to the north two hours; and then tackt and
stood to the southward againe, thinking to weather it; but could not. So
we bore away on the north side till we came to the east point, giving
the rocks a small berth: then we trimb’d sharp, and stood to the
southward, passing close by it, and sounded again, but found no ground.
This shoal is laid down in our drafts not above sixteen or twenty
leagues from New Holland; but we did runne afterwards sixty leagues due
south before we fell in with it: and I am very confident that no part of
New Holland hereabouts lyes so far northerly by forty leagues as it is
laid down in our drafts. For if New Holland were laid down true, we must
of necessity have been driven near forty leagues to the westward of our
course; but this is very improbable, that the current should set so
strong to the westward, seeing that we had such a constant westerly
wind. I grant that when the monsoon shifts first, the current does not
presently shift, but runs afterwards near a month; but the monsoon had
been shifted at least two months now. But of the monsoons and other
winds, and of the currents, elsewhere, in their proper place. As to
these here, I do rather believe that the land is not laid down true,
than that the current deceived us; for it was more probable we should
have been deceived before we met with the shoal than afterward: for on
the coast of New Holland we found the tides keeping their constant
course, the flood running N. by E. and the ebb S. by W.
The 4th day of January, 1688, we fell in with the land of New Holland,
in the latitude of 16° 50´, having, as I said before, made our course
due south from the shoal that we past by the 31st day of December. We
ran in close by it, and finding no convenient anchorage, because it lies
open to the N.W., we ran along shore to the eastward, steering N.E. by
E., for so the land lies. We steered thus about twelve leagues; and then
came to a point of land, from whence the land trends east and southerly
for ten or twelve leagues: but how afterwards I know not. About three
leagues to the eastward of this point there is a pretty deep bay, with
abundance of islands in it, and a very good place to anchor in or to
hale ashore. About a league to the eastward of that point we anchored
January the 5th, 1688, two miles from the shore, in twenty-nine fathom,
good hard sand and clean ground.
New Holland is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined
whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it
joyns neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. This part of it that we saw
is all low even land, with sandy banks against the sea, only the points
are rocky, and so are some of the islands in this bay.
The land is of a dry sandy soil, destitute of water, except you make
wells: yet producing divers sorts of trees: but the woods are not thick,
nor the trees very big. Most of the trees that we saw are dragon-trees
as we supposed; and these, too, are the largest trees of any where. They
are about the bigness of our large apple trees, and about the same
height: and the rind is blackish, and somewhat rough. The leaves are of
a dark colour; the gum distils out of the knots or cracks that are in
the bodies of the trees. We compared it with some gum dragon, or
dragon’s blood, that was aboard; and it was of the same colour and
taste. The other sorts of trees were not known by any of us. There was
pretty long grass growing under the trees, but it was very thin. We saw
no trees that bore fruit or berries.
We saw no sort of animals, nor any track of beast, but once, and that
seemed to be the tread of a beast as big as a great mastiff dog. Here
are a few small land-birds, but none bigger than a blackbird: and but
few sea-fowls. Neither is the sea very plentifully stored with fish,
unless you reckon the manatee and turtle as such. Of these creatures
there is plenty, but they are extraordinarily shy, though the
inhabitants cannot trouble them much, having neither boats nor iron.
The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world.
The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are
gentlemen to these; who have no houses and skin garments, sheep,
poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs, etc., as the Hodmadods
have; and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from
brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small long limbs.
They have great head, round foreheads, and great brows. Their eyelids
are always half closed, to keep the flies out of their eyes, they being
so troublesome here that no fanning will keep them from coming to ones
face; and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off, they
will creep into ones nostrils, and mouth, too, if the lips are not shut
very close. So that, from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these
insects, they do never open their eyes as other people do; and therefore
they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads as if they were
looking at somewhat over them.
They have great bottle-noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. The two
fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women,
old and young: whether they draw them out I know not: neither have they
any beards. They are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasing aspect,
having no one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black,
short, and curl’d, like that of the negroes; and not long and lank, like
the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and
the rest of their body, is coal black, like that of the negroes of
Guinea.
They have no sort of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree ty’d
lyke a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three
or four small green boughs, full of leaves, thrust under their girdle to
cover their nakedness.
They have no houses, but lye in the open air without any covering, the
earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy. Whether they cohabit
one man to one woman, or promiscuously, I know not; but they do live in
companies, twenty or thirty men, women and children together. Their only
food is a small sort of fish, which they get by making wares of stone
across little coves or branches of the sea; every tide bringing in the
small fish, and there leaving them for a prey to these people, who
constantly attend there to search for them at low water. This small fry
I take to be the top of their fishery: they have no instruments to catch
great fish, should they come, and such seldom stay to be left behind at
low water, nor could we catch any fish with our hooks and lines all the
while we lay there. In other places at low water they seek for cockles,
mussels, and periwincles. Of these shell-fish there are fewer still, so
that their chiefest dependance is upon what the sea leaves in their
wares, which, be it much or little, they gather up, and march to the
places of their abode. There the old people, that are not able to stir
abroad by reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their
return; and what Providence has bestowed on them, they presently broil
on the coals and eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as
makes them a plentiful banquet, and at other times they scarce get every
one a taste; but, be it little or much that they get, every one has his
part, as well the young and tender as the old and feeble, who are not
able to go abroad as the strong and lusty. When they have eaten they lie
down till the next low water, and then all that are able march out, be
it night or day, rain or shine, ’tis all one; they must attend the wares
or else they must fast, for the earth affords them no food at all. There
is neither herb, root, pulse, nor any sort of grain for them to eat that
we saw; nor any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having no
instruments wherewithal to do so.
I did not perceive that they did worship anything. These poor creatures
have a sort of weapon to defend their ware or fight with their enemies,
if they have any that will interfere with their poor fishery. They did
endeavour with their weapons to frighten us, who, lying ashore, deterr’d
them from one of their fishing places. Some of them had wooden swords,
others had a sort of lances. The sword is a piece of wood, shaped
somewhat like a cutlass. The lance is a long strait pole, sharp at one
end, and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no iron, nor any other sort
of metal; therefore it is probable they use stone hatchets, as some
Indians in America do, described in chapter iv.
How they get their fire I know not, but probably, as Indians do, out of
wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tryed
the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood, that is pretty soft, and
make a small dent in one side of it; then they take another hard round
stick, about the bigness of one’s little finger, and sharpening it at
one end like a pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of
the flat soft juice, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between
the palms of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, and
at last takes fire.
These people speak somewhat through the throat, but we could not
understand one word that they said. We anchored, as I said before,
January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the shore, we presently set a
canoe to get some acquaintance with them, for we were in hopes to get
some provisions among them. But the inhabitants, seeing our boat coming,
run away and hid themselves. We searched afterwards three days, in hopes
to find their houses; but found none; yet we saw many places where they
had made fires. At last, being out of hopes to find their habitations,
we searched no farther; but left a great many toys ashore, in such
places where we thought that they would come. In all our search we found
no water, but old wells on the sandy bays.
At last we went over to the islands, and there we found a great many of
the natives: I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women,
and children. The men, at our first coming ashore, threatened us with
their lances and swords; but they were frighted by firing one gun, which
we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they
could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing,
especially the women and children, for we went directly to their camp.
The lustiest of the women snatching up their infants ran away howling,
and the little children run after squeaking and bawling, but the men
stood still. Some of the women, and such people as could not go from us,
lay still by a fire, making a doleful noise as if we had been coming to
devour them; but when they saw that we did not intend to harm them they
were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first coming
returned again. This, their place of dwelling, was only a fire, with a
few boughs before it, set up on that side the wind was of.
After we had been here a little while the men began to be familiar, and
we cloathed some of them, designing to have some service of them for it;
for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two or
three barrels of it aboard. But being somewhat troublesome to carry to
the canoes, we thought to have made these men to have carried it for us,
and therefore we gave them some cloathes; to one an old pair of
breeches, to another a ragged shirt, to a third a jacket that was scarce
worth owning, which yet would have been very acceptable at some places
where we had been, and so we thought they might have been with these
people. We put them on them, thinking that this finery would have
brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled in
small long barrels, about six gallons in each, which were made purposely
to carry water in, we brought these our new servants to the wells, and
put a barrel on each of their shoulders for them to carry to the canoa.
But all the signs we could make were to no purpose, for they stood like
statues, without motion, but grinned like so many monkeys, staring one
upon another; for these poor creatures seem not accustomed to carry
burthens, and I believe that one of our ship-boys of ten years old would
carry as much as one of them. So we were forced to carry our water
ourselves, and they very fairly put the cloathes off again and laid them
down, as if cloathes were only to work in. I did not perceive that they
had any great liking to them at first, neither did they seem to admire
anything that we had.
At another time, our canoa being among these islands seeking for game,
espy’d a drove of these men swimming from one island to another; for
they have no boats, canoes, or bark-logs. They took up four of them and
brought them aboard; two of them were middle aged, the other two were
young men about eighteen or twenty years old. To these we gave boiled
rice, and with it turtle and manatee boiled. They did greedily devour
what we gave them, but took no notice of the ship or any thing in it,
and when they were set on land again they ran away as fast as they
could. At our first coming, before we were acquainted with them or they
with us, a company of them who lived on the main came just against our
ship, and standing on a pretty high bank, threatened us with their
swords and lances by shaking them at us; at last the captain ordered the
drum to be beaten, which was done of a sudden with much vigour,
purposely to scare the poor creatures. They hearing the noise ran away
as fast as they could drive, and when they ran away in haste they would
cry, _Gurry, Gurry_, speaking deep in the throat. Those inhabitants also
that live on the main would always run away from us, yet we took several
of them. For, as I have already observed, they had such bad eyes that
they could not see us till we came close to them. We did always give
them victuals and let them go again, but the islanders, after our first
time of being among them, did not stir for us.
When we had been here about a week, we hal’d our ship into a small sandy
cove, at a spring-tide, as far as she would float; and at low water she
was left dry, and the sand dry without us near half a mile, for the sea
riseth and falleth here about five fathoms. The flood runs north by
east, and the ebb south by west. All the neep-tides we lay wholly
aground, for the sea did not come near us by about a hundred yards. We
had therefore time enough to clean our ship’s bottom, which we did very
well. Most of our men lay ashore in a tent, where our sails were
mending; and our strikers brought home turtle and manatee every day,
which was our constant food.
While we lay here, I did endeavour to perswade our men to go to some
English factory, but was threatened to be turned ashore and left here
for it.
This made me desist, and patiently wait for some more convenient place
and opportunity to leave them than here; which I did hope I should
accomplish in a short time, because they did intend, when they went from
hence, to bear down towards Cape Comorin. In their way thither they
design’d to visit also the Island Cocos, which lieth in latitude 12° 12´
north, by our drafts: hoping there to find of that fruit, the island
having its name from thence.
EXTRACT FROM SLOAN MS. 3236, ENTITLED “THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM
DAMPIER, WITH OTHERS [1686–87], WHO LEFT CAPTAIN SHERPE IN THE SOUTH
SEAS,
AND TRAVALED BACK OVER LAND THROUGH THE COUNTRY OF DARIEN,” pp. 445 to
450.