526 Voyage from Ceram 



through the narrow strait now ceased, and we were obliged to 

 row, which with our short and heavy prau was slow work. I 

 went on shore several times, but the rocks were so precipitous, 

 sharp, and honey-combed, that I found it impossible to get 

 through the tangled thickets with which they were every- 

 where clothed. It took us three days to get to the entrance 

 of the gulf, and then the wind was such as to prevent our go- 

 ing any farther, and we might have had to wait for days or 

 weeks, when, much to my surprise and gratification, a boat ar- 

 rived from Muka with one of the head-men, who had in some 

 mysterious manner heard I was on my way, and had come to 

 my assistance, bringing a present of cocoa-nuts and vegetables. 

 Being thoroughly acquainted with the coast, and having sever- 

 al extra Inen to assist us, he managed to get the prau along by 

 rowing, poling, or sailing, and by night had brought us safely 

 into harbor, a great relief after our tedious and unhappy voy- 

 age. We had been already eight days among the reefs and 

 islands of Waigiou, coming a distance of about fifty miles, and 

 it was just forty days since we had sailed from Goram. 



Immediately on our arrival at Muka, I engaged a small boat 

 and three natives to go in search of my lost men, and sent 

 one of my own men with them to make sure of their going to 

 the right island. In ten days they returned, but, to my great 

 regret and disappointment, without the men. The weather 

 had been very bad, and though they had reached an island 

 within sight of that in which the men were, they could get no 

 further. They had waited there six days for better weather, 

 and then, having no more provisions, and the man I had sent 

 with them being very ill and not expected to live, they return- 

 ed. As they now knew the island, I was determined they 

 should make another trial, and (by a liberal payment of knives, 

 handkerchiefs, and tobacco, with plenty of provisions) per- 

 suaded them to start back immediately, and make another at- 

 tempt. They did not return again till the 29th of July, hav- 

 ing staid a few days at their own village of Bessir on the way ; 

 but this time they had succeeded and brought with them my 

 two lost men, in tolerable health, though thin and weak. They 

 had lived exactly a month on the island ; had found water, and 

 had subsisted on the roots and tender flower-stalks of a spe- 

 cies of Bromelia, on shell-fish, and on a few turtles' eggs. Hav- 



