CHAP. xxxvi.J MUKA. 35/ 



little fishing or trading excursions, as an excitement in 

 their monotonous existence. They are under the rule of 

 the Sultan of Tidore, and every year have to pay a small 

 tribute of Paradise birds, tortoiseshell, or sago. To obtain 

 these, they go in the fine season on a trading voyage to the 

 mainland of New Guinea, and getting a few goods on 

 credit from some Coram or Bugis trader, make hard 

 bargains with the natives, and gain enough to pay their 

 tribute, and leave a little profit for themselves. 



Such a country is not a very pleasant one to live in, for as 

 there are no superfluities, there is nothing to sell ; and had 

 it not been for a trader from Ceram who was residing 

 there during my stay, who had a small vegetable garden, 

 and whose men occasionally got a few spare fish, I should 

 often have had nothing to eat. Fowls, fruit, and vegetables 

 are luxuries very rarely to be purchased at Muka ; and 

 even cocoa-nuts, so indispensable for eastern cookery, 

 are not to be obtained ; for though there are some 

 hundreds of trees in the village, all the fruit is eaten 

 green, to supply the place of the vegetables the people • 

 are too lazy to cultivate. Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or 

 plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous 

 weather being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on 

 . what few eatable birds we could shoot, with an occasional 

 cuscus, or eastern opossum, the only qiiadruped, except 

 pigs, inhabiting the island. 



