AMBONESE COOLIES 51 



of bedding and mats. Their average age appeared to 

 be about sixteen years, and though they were said to 

 be the best men obtainable in Amboina, the physique 

 of most of them was wretched. It was evidently useless 

 to keep so many feeble creatures, so it was decided 

 to keep fifty of the more promising and send the rest 

 back to Amboina by the Nias, which was waiting at 

 the mouth of the Mimika until the following day. The 

 whole gang was paraded and a more hopeless looking 

 lot it w^ould be hard to imagine. With great difficulty 

 we picked out fifty who, though they had little appear- 

 ance of strength, were not obviously crippled by disease, 

 and the forty-six others were sent away without having 

 done a single day's work. 



The question of coolies, as we were to find by bitter 

 experience during the ensuing months, is the point 

 that determines the success or failure of an expedition. 

 Mr. Stalker had left England charged with the duty 

 of engaging coolies for this expedition. It was hoped 

 that he would be able to get a number of men in the 

 Ke Islands, but failing to engage them there he had 

 seen in Amboina his only chance of recruiting a suffi- 

 cient number of men. No blame can be attached to 

 him, for he had had no experience of the kind before 

 and his instructions were not very detailed, but it was 

 a mistake which seriously delayed the progress of the 

 expedition. 



As well as the trouble involved in trying to make 

 a silk purse of efficient coolies out of the sow's ear of 

 the Amboina rabble we were confronted by another 

 difficulty of transport. It has been mentioned above 



