OHAF, XXV.] MT CREW RUN A WJF. 7 7 



noon, the heavy sea caiising my prau to roll about a good 

 deal, to the damage of our crockery. As bad weather 

 seemed coming oo, we got inside the reefs and anchored 

 opposite the villajje of Warus-wams to wait for a change. 

 The night was verj^ squally, and though in a good liarbour 

 we rolled and jerked uneasily ; but in the moniing 1 had 

 greater cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our 

 entire Goram crew had decamped, taking with them all 

 they possessed and a little more, and leaving us without 

 any small boat in which to land. I immediately told my 

 Amboyna men to load and iire the muskets as a signal of 

 distress, which was soon answered by the vilhi^e chief 

 sending off a boat, which took me on shora I requested 

 that messengers should be immediately sent to the noigh- 

 bouring villages in quest of the fugitives, which was 

 promptly done. My prau was brought into a small creek, 

 %vhere it could secujely rest in tlie mud at low water, and 

 part of a house was given me in which I coxild stay for 

 a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, 

 just when I thought T had overcome my chief difhculties. 

 As I had treated ray men with the greatest kindness, ami 

 had given them almost everything they had asked for, 1 

 can impute their running away only to their being totally 

 unaccustomed to tlie restraint of a Kuropeati master, and 

 to some undefined dread ttf my ultiniat*' intentiona regard- 

 ing them. The oldest man was an opium smoker, and a 

 reputed thief, but I had been obliged to take him at the 

 last moment as a substitute for another. I feel sure it was 

 he who induced the others to run away, and as they knew 

 the country well, and had several hours' start of us, there 

 was little chance of catching them. 



We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram, 

 which supplies most of the surrounding islands with their 

 daily bread, and during our week's delay I had an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing the whole process of making it, and 

 obtahiing some interesting statistics. The sago tree is a 

 palm, thicker and lai-ger than tlie cocoa-nufc tree, although 

 rarely so tull, and having immense pinnate spiny leaves, 

 which completely cover the trunk till it is many years old. 

 ft has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa piilm, and when 

 about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense 



