THE MOLUCCAS ?,'M 



The island was originally one vast, unbroken forest, and 

 is so still, except around the town. The highest peak 

 attains an elevation of 4010 feet. In the north-west of 

 the island is a volcano, which has been in eruption many 

 times between 1674 and 1824, but since that date it 

 has been so completely quiescent that most of the in- 

 habitants will not believe that any volcano exists. They 

 are supported in this opinion by the fact that no one 

 now knows exactly where it is, there being no lofty cone, 

 and nothing to distinguish it at a distance from tlie 

 forest-clad hills which surround it. Neither is Amboina 

 now much subject to earthquakes, although many have 

 occurred, and may any day occur again. While Dampier 

 was here in 1705 there was a great earthquake, which 

 lasted two days, and did great mischief, the ground 

 bursting open in many places, and swallowing up entire 

 families in their houses. The ground swelled like a wave 

 of the sea, and the massive walls of the fort were rent 

 asunder in several places. 



Amboina was first known to Europeans in 1511, in 

 which year Serrao, one of the commanders of the fleet of 

 d'Abreu, who had been sent by Albuquerque to discover 

 the Moluccas, landed with his crew, having been ship- 

 wrecked on some reefs to the south. The town was 

 taken from the Portugxiese by the Dutch in 1609. It 

 is celel^rated as having been long the residence of the 

 botanist Eumi^hius, who died here in 1693, and of 

 Valentiju, the historian of the Dutch Indies. The 

 inhabitants of the island, as might be surmised from its 

 having been so long under foreign dominion and a 

 centre of trade, are a mixed race, formed chiefly of 

 ]\Ioluccan ]\ialays and indigenous Ceramese. They in- 

 habit a number of villages round the coast, speak 

 several different languages, and are all professedly either 



