550 Voyage feom Waigiou 



praus had poured through their bottoms. As it was, he im- 

 puted our safety and the quick termination of the squall en- 

 tirely to his own prayers, saying with a laugh, " Yes, that's 

 the way we always do on board our praus ; when things are 

 at the worst we stand up and shout out our prayers as loud 

 as we can, and then Tuwan Allah helps us." 



After this it took us two days more to reach Temate, 

 having our usual calms, sqiTalls, and head- winds to the very 

 last ; and once having to return back to our anchorage ow- 

 ing to violent gusts of wind just as we were close to the 

 town. Looking at my whole voyage in this vessel from the 

 time when I left Goram in May, it will appear that my ex- 

 periences of travel in a native prau have not been encourag- 

 ing. My first crew ran away ; two men were lost for a 

 month on a desert island ; we were ten times aground on 

 coral reefs ; we lost four anchors ; the sails were devoured by 

 rats; the small boat was lost astern; we were thirty-eight 

 days on the voyage home, which should not have taken 

 twelve ; we were many times short of food and water ; we 

 had no compass-lamp, owing to there not being a drop of oil 

 in Waigiou when we left ; and to crown all, during the whole 

 of our voyages from Goram by Ceram to Waigiou, and from 

 Waigiou to Ternate, occupying in all seventy-eight days, or 

 only twelve days short of three months (all in what was sup- 

 posed to be the favorable season), we had oiot one single day 

 of fair wind! We were always close braced up, always 

 struggling against wind, tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that 

 would scarcely sail nearer than eight points from the wind. 

 Every seaman will admit that my first voyage in my own 

 boat was a most unlucky one. 



Charles Allen had obtained a tolerable collection of birds 

 and insects at Mysol, but far less than he would have done if 

 I had not been so unfortunate as to miss visiting him. After 

 waiting another week or two till he was nearly starved, he 

 returned to Wahai, in Ceram, and heard, much to his surprise, 

 that I had left a fortnight before. He was delayed there 

 more than a month before he could get back to the north 

 side of Mysol, which he found a much better locality, but it 

 was not yet the season for the paradise birds ; and before he 

 had obtained more than a few of the common sort, the last 



