424: The Ke Islands. 



rugged and broken, and so honey-combed and weather-worn 

 into sharp points and angles, that my boys, who had gone 

 barefooted all their lives, could not stand it. Their feet be- 

 gan to bleed, and I saw that if I did not want them complete- 

 ly lamed it would be wise to turn back. My own shoes, 

 which were rather thin, were but a poor protection, and would 

 soon have been cut to pieces; yet our little naked guides 

 tripped along with the greatest ease and unconcern, and 

 seemed much astonished at our effeminacy in not being able 

 to take a walk which to them was a perfectly agreeable one. 

 During the rest of our stay in the island we were obliged to 

 confine ourselves to the vicinity of the shore and the culti- 

 vated grounds, and those more level portions of the forest 

 where a little soil had accumulated and the rock had been less 

 exposed to atmospheric action. 



The island of Ke (pronounced exactly as the letter K, but 

 erroneously spelt in our maps Key or Ki) is long and narrow, 

 running in a north and south direction, and consists almost 

 entirely of rock and mountain. It is everywhere covered with 

 luxuriant forests, and in its bays and inlets the sand is of daz- 

 zling whiteness, resulting from the decomposition of the cor- 

 alline limestone of which it is entirely composed. In all the 

 little swampy inlets and vaUeys sago-trees abound, and these 

 supply the main subsistence of the natives, who grow no rice, 

 and have scarcely any other cultivated products but cocoa- 

 nuts, plantains, and yams. From the cocoa-nuts, which sur- 

 round every hut, and which thrive exceedingly on the porous 

 limestone soil and under the influence of salt breezes, oil is 

 made, which is sold at a good price to the Aru traders, who 

 all touch here to lay in their stock of this article, as well as to 

 purchase boats and native crockery. Wooden bowls, pans, 

 and trays are also largely made here, hewn out of solid blocks 

 of wood with knife and adze ; and these are carried to all parts 

 of the Moluccas. But the art in which the natives of Ke pre- 

 eminently excel is that of boat-building. Their forests sup- 

 ply abundance of fine timber, though probably not more so 

 than many other islands, and from some unknown causes 

 these remote savages have come to excel in what seems a very 

 difficult art. Their small canoes are beautifully formed, broad 

 and low in the centre, but rising at each end, where they ter- 



