384 VOYAGE FROM WAIGIOU [chap, xxxvn. 



encouraging. My first crew ran away ; two men were lost 

 for a mouth on a desert island ; we were ten times aground 

 on coral reefs ; we lost four anchors ; the sails were de- 

 voured by rats ; the small boat was lost astern ; we were 

 thirty-eight days on the voyage home, which should not 

 have taken twelve ; we were many times short of food and 

 water ; we had no compass-lamp, owing to there not being 

 a drop of od. in Waigiou when we left ; and to crown all, 

 during the whole of our voyages from Goram by Ceram to 

 Waigiou, and from Waigiou to Ternate, occupying in all 

 seventy-eight days, or only twelve days short of three 

 months (all in what was supposed to be the favourable 

 season), we had not one single day of fair wind. We were 

 always close braced up, always struggling against wind, 

 tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that would scarcely sail 

 nearer than eight points from the wind. Every seaman 

 will admit that my first voyage in my own boat was a 

 most unlucky one. 



Charles Allen had obtained a tolerable collection of 

 birds and insects at Mysol, but far less than he would have 

 done if I had not been so unfortunate as to miss visiting 

 him. After waiting another week or two till he was 

 nearly starved, he returned to Wahai in Ceram, and 

 heard, much to his surprise, that I had left a fortnight 

 before. He was delayed there more than a month before 

 he could get back to the north side of Mysol, which he 



