CHAPTER II 



Expedition leaves Java — The " Nias " — Escort — Macassar — Raja of 

 Goa — Amhoina — Corals and Fishes — Amhonese Christians — Dutch 

 Clubs — Dobo. 



On December 21st we left Batavia, and on Christmas 

 Day, 1909, we sailed from Soerabaja in the Government 

 steamer Nias, Capt. Hondius van Hcrwerden. The 

 Nias, a ship of about six hundred tons, formerly a gun- 

 boat in the Netherlands Indies Marine, is now stripped 

 of her two small guns and is used by the Government 

 as a special service vessel. Her last commission before 

 embarking us has been to transport Mr. Lorentz on his 

 expedition to the Noord River in New Guinea three 

 months earlier. Now she was full to the brim of stores 

 and gear of all sorts and her decks were crowded with 

 men. There were five of us and ten Gurkhas. The 

 Dutch escort consisted of Lieutenant H. A. Cramer in 

 command, two Dutch sergeants and one Dutch medical 

 orderly, forty native Javanese soldiers and sixty 

 convicts, most of them Javanese. The convicts were 

 nearly all of them men with more or less long 

 sentences of imprisonment and some of them were 

 murderers in chains, which were knocked off them 

 to their great relief the day after we left Soerabaja. 

 One of the best of the convicts, a native of Bali, was 

 a murderer (see illustration, page 12), who did 



