X.] DANCE GIVEN BY THE SULTAN. 243 



permit of people passing into the next room as to separate the 

 ladies of royal blood from those of inferior rank. Each of the 

 former had an attendant sitting behind her, and was dressed in the 

 usual kibaya and sarong, and covered with bracelets and other orna- 

 ments. Many of them were decidedly good-looking, and their 

 magnificent gold-embroidered sarongs put the European dresses 

 quite into the shade. The ]\Ialay races have almost everywhere 

 adopted dances similar to om^ own, or at least adaptations of them, 

 and a square dance resembling a quadrille, a sort of mazurka, and 

 a " hop " waltz wMch formed the programme w^ere not beyond our 

 powers. It was an amusing experience to make the " ladies' chain " 

 in company mth a kris-begirt warrior smoking a ]\Ianila, but it 

 was still more comic to watch our friend the Kapten Laut. The 

 way the old gentleman flirted with his various partners, the 

 desperate energy with which he danced, and the convulsive 

 wagglings of the epaulets and middy's dii'k on his shrivelled old 

 body kept us in fits of suppressed laughter for the whole of the 

 evening. 



The rest of our party had not been idle durmg our absence in 

 the Obi Islands. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Storme, the 

 Ivontroleur, we had been permitted to take in a fresh supply of 

 coal from the Government stores — the last that we could expect 

 to get to serve us for our New Guinea voyage. Some observations 

 for the longitude corroborated those of the Dutch, placing " Fort 

 Barneveld"^ in Lono-. 127° 27' 30" E.; two miles eastward of the 

 position assigned to it in the English chart. The anchorage off the 

 village affords good holding gTOimd, and is free of shoals. It is 

 well protected except to the S.S.W., but a hea^^ swell not in- 

 frequently sets in from that quarter during the prevalence of the 



^ A fort was established by the Portuguese at this spot in the earl}- part of the 

 sixteenth century, but it fell into Dutch hands in 1539. The present building, 

 which is of very small size and manned by half a dozen coloured soldiers, bears the 

 date 1615 and the arms of Zeeland over the gateway. Just previous to our visit a 

 lire had occurred during the unaccustomed business of saluting the Resident of 

 Ternate, and little was left but the four bare walls. 



