Abolition of Slavery. S19 



dore, who sometimes goes there hunting. It was a dirty ruin- 

 ous shed, with no furniture but a few bamboo bedsteads. On 

 taking a walk into the country, I saw at once that it was no 

 place for me. For many miles extends a plain covered with 

 coarse high grass, thickly dotted here and there with trees, 

 the forest country only commencing at the hiUs a good way 

 in the interior. Such a place would produce few birds and no 

 insects, and we therefore arranged to stay only two days, and 

 then go on to Dodiuga, at the narrow central isthmus of Gi- 

 lolo, whence my friends would return to Ternate. We amused 

 ourselves shooting parrots, lories, and pigeons, and trying to 

 shoot deer, of which we saw plenty, but could not get one ; 

 and our crew went out fishing with a net, so we did not want 

 for provisions. When the time came for us to continue our 

 journey, a fresh difficulty presented itself, for our gentlemen 

 slaves refused in a body to go with us, saying very determined- 

 ly that they would return to Ternate. So their masters were 

 obliged to submit, and I was left behind to get to Dodiuga 

 as I could. Luckily I succeeded in hix'ing a small boat, which 

 took me there the same night, with my two men and my bag- 

 gage. 



Two or three years after this, and about the same length of 

 time before I left the East, the Dutch emancipated all their 

 slaves, paying their owners a small compensation. No ill re- 

 sults followed. Owing to the amicable relations which had 

 always existed between them and their masters, due no doubt 

 in part to the Government having long accorded them legal 

 rights and protection against cruelty and ill-usage, many con- 

 tinued in the same service, and after a little temporary diffi- 

 culty in some cases, almost all returned to work either for 

 their old or for new masters. The Government took the very 

 proper step of placing every emancipated slave under the sur- 

 veillance of the police magistrate. They were obliged to show 

 that they were working for a living, and had some honestly- 

 acquired means of existence. All who could not do so were 

 placed upon public works at low wages, and thus were kept 

 from the temptation to peculation or other crimes, which the 

 excitement of newly-acquired freedom and disinclination to 

 labor might have led them into. 



