116 CERAM. [chap. XXV. 



distress, which was soon answered by the village chief 

 sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested 

 that messengers should be immediately sent to the neigh- 

 bouring villages in quest of the fugitives, which was 

 promptly done. My prau was brought into a small creek, 

 where it could securely rest in the mud at low water, and 

 part of a house was given me in which I could stay for 

 a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, 

 just when I thought 1 had overcome my chief difficulties. 

 As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness, and 

 had given them almost everything they had asked for, I 

 can impute their running away only to their being totally 

 unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and 

 to some undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regard- 

 ing them. The oldest man was an opium smoker, and a 

 reputed thief, but I had been obliged to take him at the 

 last moment as a substitute for another. I feel sure it was 

 he who induced the others to run away, and as they knew 

 the country well, and had several hours' start of us, there 

 was little chance of catching them. 



We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram, 

 which supplies most of the surrounding islands with their 

 daily bread, and during our week's delay I had an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing the whole process of making it, and 

 obtaining some interesting statistics. The sago tree is a 

 palm, thicker and larger than the cocoa-nut tree, although 



