THE AMBONESE 17 



the very evanescent colours of the fish have faded. 

 Nearly every man in the place is a fisherman during 

 some part of the day or night, and nobody need starve 

 who has the energy to throw a baited hook into the 

 sea. Most of the fish arc caught either in nets very 

 similar to our seine-net or in more elaborate traps 

 which are mostly constructed by Chinamen. 



The market is also worth visiting to see the variety 

 of fruit and spices that grow in the island. Amboina 

 has a peculiar form of banana, the Pisang Ambon, with 

 white flesh, dark green skin, and a very peculiar flavour. 

 Besides this there are many other kinds of bananas, 

 mangoes, mangostines, guavas, sour-manilla, soursop, 

 pineapples, kanari nut, nutmeg, cloves, and a small but 

 very delicious fruit, the garnderia. 



The native inhabitants of Amboina are a curious 

 mixture of the aboriginal native with Portuguese, Dutch, 

 and Malay blood. There is a strong predominance of 

 the Portuguese type, which shows itself in the faces of 

 many of the people, who still use words of Portuguese 

 origin, and preserve many Portuguese names. A large 

 number of them are Christians, and they rejoice in such 

 names as Josef, Esau, Jacob, Petrus and Domingos. 



New Year's Eve was celebrated by a confusion of 

 fireworks and gun-firing, which lasted from sunset 

 until the small hours of 1910, and by an afternoon 

 service in the Church attended by many hundreds of 

 people. The women, who are usually in Amboina 

 dressed entirely in black, wore for the occasion long 

 white coats, black sarongs and white stockings. The 

 men went more variously clad in straw hats, dinner 



