CHAP, xxvm.] IN A NATIVE PRAU. 167 



nakoda (captain) was known to our owner. They had 

 been two years away, but were full of people, with several 

 black Papuans on board. At 6 p.m. we passed Wangi- 

 wangi, low but not flat, inhabited and subject to Boutong. 

 We had now fairly entered the Molucca Sea. After dark 

 it was a beautiful sight to look down on our rudders, from 

 which rushed eddying streams of phosphoric light gemmed 

 with whirling sparks of fire. It resembled (more nearly than 

 anything else to which I can compare it) one of the large 

 irregular nebulous star-clusters seen through a good tele- 

 scope, with the additional attraction of ever-changing form 

 and dancing motion. 



Dec. 23c?. — Fine red sunrise ; the island we left last 

 evening barely visible behind us. The Goram prau about 

 a mile south of us. They have np compass, yet they have 

 kept a very true course during the night. Our owner tells 

 me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction of 

 which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night. 

 In these seas they are never (in fine weather) more than 

 two days without seeing land. Of course adverse winds or 

 currents sometimes carry them away, but they soon fall 

 in with some island, and there are always some old sailors 

 on board who know it, and thence take a new course. 

 Last night a shark about five feet long was caught, and 

 this morning it was cut up and cooked. In the afternoon 

 they got another, and I had a little fried, and found it firm 



