4 72 AMBOYNA. [chap. xx. 



impressing their national characteristics on every country 

 they conquered, or in which they effected a merely tem- 

 porary settlement. In a suburb of Amboyna there is a 

 village of aboriginal Malays who are Mahometans, and 

 who speak a peculiar language allied to those of Ceram, as 

 well as Malay. They are chiefly fishermen, and are said 

 to be both more industrious and more honest than the 

 native Christians. 



I went on Sunday, by invitation, to see a collection of 

 shells and fish made by a gentleman of Amboyna. The 

 fishes are perhaps unrivalled for variety and beauty by 

 those of any one spot on the earth. The celebrated Dutch 

 ichthyologist, Dr. Blecker, has given a catalogue of seven 

 hundred and eighty species found at Amboyna, a number 

 almost equal to those of all the seas and rivers of Europe. 

 A large proportion of them are of the most brilliant colours, 

 being marked with bands and spots of the purest yellows, 

 reds, and blues ; while their forms present all that strange 

 and endless variety so characteristic of the inhabitants of 

 the ocean. The shells are also very uumerous, and com- 

 prise a number of the finest species in the world. The 



Pombo (pigeon); milo (maize); testa (forehead); horas (hours); alfmete 

 (pin); cadeira (chair); len?o (handkerchief); fresco (cool); trigo (flour); 

 sono (sleep) ; familia (family) ; histori (talk) ; vosse (you) ; mesmo 

 (even); cufihado (brother-in-law); senhor (sir); nyora for signora 

 (madam). — None of them, however, have the least notion that these 

 words belong to a European language. 



