CHAP. XXV.] A RACE OF TRABERS. 107 



and has supplied them with a few of its peculiar pro- 

 ductions. 



The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a 

 race of traders. Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, 

 and Aru Islands, the whole north-west coast of New 

 Guinea from Oetanata to Salwatty, and the island of 

 Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend their voyages to 

 Tidore and Ternate, as well as to Banda and Amboyna. 

 Their praus are all made by that wonderful race of boat- 

 builders, the Ke islanders, who annually turn out some 

 hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be 

 surpassed for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship. 

 They trade chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mvxssoi bark, 

 wild nutmegs, and tortoise-shell, which they sell to the 

 Bugis traders at Ceram-laut or Aru, few of them caring to 

 take their products to any other market. In other respects 

 they are a lazy race, living very poorly, and much given to 

 opium smoking. The only native manufactures are sail- 

 matting, coarse cotton cloth, and pandanus-leaf boxes, 

 prettily stained and ornamented with shell-work. 



In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, 

 there are about a dozen Eajahs, scarcely better off 

 than the rest of the inhabitants, and exercising a mere 

 nominal sway, except when any order is received from 

 the Dutch Government, when, being backed by a 

 higher power, they show a little more strict authority- 



