18G TRAVELS IX THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



understood how to take all their odd steps with due 

 grace. The passion of these people for dancing ap- 

 pears to be insatiable, for at eight o'clock the next 

 morning a good j)roportion of them were still whiii- 

 ing round and round with as much spirit as if the 

 fete had just begun. As might natui^ally be ex- 

 pected, these natives abhor all application and labor, 

 in the same degree that they are fond of excitement. 

 Saparua Bay is one of the most beautiful inlets 

 of the sea. Near its head is a bold, projecting bluff, 

 and on this rise the white walls of Fort Duurstede. 

 The other parts of the shore form a semicircular, 

 sandy beach, which is bordered with such a thick 

 grove of cocoa-nut palms that no one looking from 

 the bay would imagine that they concealed hundreds 

 of native houses. Here myriads of flat sea-urchins, 

 Clypeastridce, almost covered the flats near low- water 

 level, and completely bui'ied themselves in the cal- 

 careous sand as the tide left them. Thousands of 

 little star-fish were also found in the same locality, 

 hiding themselves in a similar manner. Higher up 

 the beach among the cdgce were many larger star- 

 fishes, with the usual five rays ; but, as sometimes 

 happens among these low animals, one specimen was 

 pro\dded with one aiTQ more than his companions, and 

 could boast of six. Where ledges of coral rock rose 

 out of the water, countless numbers of the little money 

 cowry, Cyprcea moneta^ filled the excavations formed 

 in this soft rock. They are seldom collected here, as 

 they are too small to be used for food, and these na- 

 tives never use them as a medium of exchange, as 

 has been the custom from the earliest ages in India. 



