Chapter 2: 5 (3)

I here recognised several Australian shrubs and palms. The rock of which this port of Rottee is formed appeared of a madreporic nature, scattered about in huge blocks. At a little distance from the water it formed low broken cliffs from twenty to thirty feet in length; these were everywhere undermined by the sea, from which the land here was evidently emerging. I noticed several deserted huts and broken walls or fences, which bore the appearance of having had much labour bestowed on them at some time or other. They added much to the lonely appearance of the place, for there is nothing that imparts so great an air of desolation to a scene as the signs that it has once been inhabited by man. Tracts which have never before been trodden by human foot may be gazed on with pleasurable emotions; but there are always melancholy associations connected with a spot which our fellow-creatures have once inhabited and abandoned.

The natives we saw belonged to the southern side of Tykale Inlet. They were occupied in looking after some weirs, from the size and number of which it would appear that they chiefly live on fish.

JEWELLERS OF PULO DOUW.

The inhabitants of Pulo Douw are a small wandering tribe from Savu, chiefly jewellers, as the Resident at Coepang informed me. It is a strange place for them to take up their abode in; perhaps they do not like the idea of living under a Rajah. They are, I believe, beautiful workmen; but with them all is not gold that glitters. There are plenty of coconuts in the island, but little water; the landing at all times is bad.

When at Coepang we saw some specimens of the gold, collected after heavy rains from the washings of the hills, and brought down for barter to the merchants in grains enclosed in small lengths of bamboo, containing each from six to eighteen drams. Thirty miles south-west of Diely, also, are some mines of virgin copper.