SPICY ISLANDS. ^6y 



Mora\ for variety and fingularity of vegetation, no part of the 

 torrid zone can (in even far greater fpace) vie with it in num- 

 bers and elegancy. The whole length of the greater portion of 

 this double ifland, I may call it, is feventy miles. The inter- 

 vening fpace of water is a moll fecure and beautiful meandering 

 bay, with numberlefs ftreams falling from the hills, a blefling 

 enjoyed by every fide of the ifland. D ampler * tells us, that the 

 fea furrounding it is a hundred fathom deep ; the bottom fandy 

 and unfit for anchoring, except at the Ley^ at the weft end, 

 where it may be done in twenty fathoms. 



Amboina was difcovered by Antonio d'Abreu +, about the year Whek dis- 



T • i- • J -I -I , COVERED. 



1511. It IS laid to have been even then peopled with Malayans^ 

 and pofllbly fome of the Aborigines, reprefented as a moft barba- 

 rous race. Their prefent religion is Mahometanifin mixed with 

 Paganifm. By the wooden print given at p. 10. of the old 

 edition of Heejnjkirk^s Voyage, fome of the people had no more 

 than a wrapper round their middle, others were cloathed in long- 

 garments, and the military in a fliirt and fort of fliort breeches. 

 Their weapons were fpears, fcymetars, poifoned darts blown out 

 of tubes, and even matchlocks, as early as the year 1598, which 

 laft they probably got from the Portuguefe, their firft mafters : 

 their defenfive arms were fliields, very long and narrow. Nieu- 

 boffgwQs a print of an Amboinefe foldier in the Butcb fcrvice at 

 Batavia : many Amboinefe are fettled there, and are reprefented 

 as a moft dangerous and turbulent people. 



The conqueft of Amboina by the Fortuguefe arofe from this Conq_u£red 

 circumftance. In 1546 Galoim, governor of 'Ternate, had obferved r, J"^^,,... 



t J AUK 1 LOUES £• 



great numbers of fmall veff^ls reforting from 'Java, Macajfar, 



* Voyages, iv. p. 184. •}■ Lonquetes des Portugais, vol. iii. p. 41. 



Banda, 



