352 



CERAM. 



[cHAF. xxr. 



short list of words tnken down in those islatids, and in 

 ovory case they agreed with those ho had given me. He 

 used to sing a Hehrew drinking-song, wbicli lie had k»anied 

 i'i*om some Jews with whom he had once travelled, and 

 astonished by joining in their conversation, and had a 

 never-ending fund of tale and anecdote abont the people 

 he had ntet and the ]daces he had visited. 



In most of the villages of tliis part of Ceram are schools 

 and native schoolmasters, and the inhabitants have been 

 long converted to Christianity, In the larger vOlages 

 tliere are European missionaries ; but there is little or no 

 external diGference between the Christian and Alfnro 

 \dllages, nor, as far as 1 have seen, in their inhabitants. 

 The people seem more decidedly Papuan than those of 

 {.lilolo. They are darker in colour, and a number of them 

 have the frizzly Papuan hair ; their features also are harah 

 and prominent, and the women in particular are far less 

 engiiging than those of the Malay race. Captain Van der 

 Beck was never tired of abusing the inliabitants of these 

 Christian vDlages as thieves, liars, aiid drunkards, besides 

 being incorrigibly lazy. In the city of Amboyna xny friends 

 Doctors Mohnike and Doleschall, as well as most of the 

 European residents and ti-adei's, made exactly the same 

 complaint, and would rather have Mahometans for ser- 

 vants, even if convicts, than any of the native Christians. 

 One great cause of this is the fact, that with the Mahome- 

 tans tempei-aiice is a part of their religion, and has become 

 so much a habit that practically the rule is never trans- 

 gressed. One fertile source of want, and one great incen- 

 tive to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one 

 class, but absent in the other ; but besides this the Chris- 

 tians look upon themselves as nearly the equals of the 

 Europeans, wdio profess the same religion, and as far 

 superior to the followers of Islam, and arc therefore prone 

 to diispise work, and to endeavour to live by trade, or by 

 cultivating their own land. It m^ed hardly be said 

 that with people in this low state of civilization religion 

 is almost wholly ceremonial, and that neither are the 

 doctrines of Christianity comprehended, nor its moral 

 pi-ecepts obeyed. At the same time, as far as my own 

 experience goes, I have fonud the better class of ** Orang 



