CARPE DIEM. 197 



most extravagant prices, that I fear the chief effect 

 of this change will be to diminish even the little 

 travel and trade there are now, unless the present 

 system shall be continued till large numbers of horses 

 are introduced. 



This proposed taxation will certainly be veiy 

 light, for each man can earn the five guilders required 

 of him by carrying coal or fi*eight for a week at the 

 city of Amboina. 



The great obstacle to every reform among these 

 natives is, that only a very few of them, if they have 

 enough for one day, will earn any thing for the mor- 

 row. " Carpe diem " is a motto more absolutely ob- 

 served here than in luxurious Rome. The desire of 

 all Europeans to have something reserved for sick- 

 ness or old age is a feeling which these people appear 

 to never experience, and such innate impro\'idence is, 

 unfortunately, encouraged from their earliest child- 

 hood by the unftiiling and unsparing manner in which 

 Nature supplies their Hmited wants. The possi- 

 l)ility of a famine is something they cannot compre- 

 hend. 



In 1854, 120,283 Amsterdam pounds of cloves 

 were raised on this island from 13,042 trees, each 

 tree pelding the great quantity of nine j^ounds. In 

 the same year, on Saparua, from 29,732 fruit-trees, 

 181,137 Amsterdam pounds were gathered, one-third 

 of the whole crop (510,912 pounds) obtained that 

 year in Amboina, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut. 

 On Ilaruku 38,803 pounds were gathered that year. 

 These three islands, Ilaruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, 

 with the neighboring south coast of Ceram, form one 



