NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
563 
At present a great part of the labour is imported from Java, by contract between the 
labourer and the owner of an estate ; the man agrees to work for a term of years, the 
wages being, after £15 passage money has been paid, from £10 to £20 per annum. As 
many women are encouraged to follow the men as possible ; but it is difficult to induce 
the better class of men to emigrate. Here as elsewhere the native does not appreciate 
hard manual labour, whilst the European sits in his verandah, smoking, with plenty of 
cooling drinks at hand. The management of these imported labourers is a matter of no 
small difficulty ; the only punishment allowed by the Government is imprisonment, and 
consequent loss of the man’s services ; and a blow given by a European is also punished 
with imprisonment, a fine for such an offence being disallowed. This naturally most effec- 
tually prevents ill treatment, but does not commend itself to the planter’s notion of justice. 
Almost the whole of the low ground and many of the slopes of the Banda group are 
planted with nutmegs grown under the shade of lofty Canary trees ( Concilium commune). 
The light volcanic soil, the shade, and the excessive moisture of these islands, where it 
rains more or less every month in the year, seem exactly to suit the nutmeg tree, which 
requires no manure and but little attention. 
A party from the ship ascended the east side of Gunung Api. It appears to be but 
seldom climbed either by Dutch residents or natives. The mountain is a steep simple 
cone covered with bushes up to within about 700 or 800 feet of the summit, and with 
the help of these, climbing is easy enough. Above the limit of the bushes there are steep 
slopes of loose stones, wearisome to climb and constantly falling. Above these, again, 
the surface of the cone is hard, the fine ashes and lava fragments, of which it is composed, 
being cemented together so as to form a hard crust. This is roughened by the projection of 
fragments, but still smooth enough to require some care in the placing of the feet to men 
wearing boots. The Malay guides with naked feet stood with ease upon it anywhere. 
The inclination of the slope is about 33 ; and to a man who easily becomes giddy no 
doubt would be rather formidable in descent. An American traveller, Mr. Bickmore, 
has written a most appalling account of the danger which he encountered in descending, 
but to a man with an ordinarily good head there are no difficulties either in the 
ascent or descent. 
At the summit the fragments of rock were undergoing slow decomposition under 
the action of heated vapours issuing in all directions from amongst them, and were 
softened and turned white, like chalk. Any of these fragments when broken showed 
part of their mass still black and unaltered, and the remainder white ; the decomposition 
not having reached as yet through the whole. The rocks collected at Gunung Api are 
augite-andesite, the augite is generally pleochroic, the plagioclase very much decomposed. 
Along with these rocks are some specimens of more scoriaceous character, but having the 
same mineralogical composition as the first ones. 
Jets of hot steam issued in many places from fissures. Around the mouths of these 
