NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
577 
bears a few scattered clumps of cocoanut trees, and appears like an island at a distance 
of 25 miles. The ravines and lower lands are all well wooded. The western extremity 
of Noessaniva Point is a bluff some 300 feet hioh. 
O 
The island of Melano is about 700 feet high, steep to the southeast, sloping to the 
northwest. 
The island of Saparoea has a hill some 1000 feet in height on its northwest end, the 
east point as seen from a distance of 25 miles appears low. 
The centre of Haruku Island is about 1200 feet in height. 
At 5 p.m. the ship “ came to ” in Amboina Bay, off’ Fort Victoria, in 24 fathoms, one 
cable W. by N. from the pier and, sending a hawser to an anchor on the shore just south 
of the pier, moored with the off anchor and hawser. This method of securing the ship 
is necessary in Amboina Bay, for the water is so deep that it becomes extremely 
awkward anchoring at a sufficient distance from the shore to allow the ship to 
swing, consequently the Dutch authorities have placed anchors at convenient distances 
apart, on the mud flat before the town, to which vessels may fasten a cable or 
hawser, using their own anchors as off’ moorings. As these anchors are only partially 
uncovered at low water, it is necessary to dive to fasten the hawser to the ring, but 
the Malays are first-rate divers, and their services can be hired at a very cheap rate, 
so that it is much better to obtain one of these men (numbers of whom are sure to be 
on the beach or on the pier) than to expose Europeans to the hot sun of the tropics. The 
edge of the shoal abreast the town of Amboina is well marked with fishing stakes, which 
indeed are to be seen stretching out from the shore at intervals all down the bay. 
The existence of Amboina (like Banda) was first known to Europeans in 1506, and 
about 1521 the island was taken possession of by a Portuguese squadron of nine ships, 
commanded by Antonio de Britto, who built a fort on the island. 
The Portuguese occupation continued until 1605, when the natives called on the Dutch 
to assist them in exjjelling the Portuguese. In February of that year a Dutch fleet ol 
five sail, under the command of Admiral Van der Hagen, anchored off the Portuguese 
fort of Amboina, and landing some men summoned the Governor to surrender, the 
ships opening fire. The Portuguese, without defending themselves, capitulated, and 
the Dutch admiral took possession of the island, which his countymen have since 
held with one short exception, when Admiral Rainier, during the great continental 
war, captured it in 1796, and it was held by the English until 1813, when at the 
general peace it was returned to the Dutch. The terms ol capitulation between the 
Dutch and Portuguese were, that the single men, six hundred in number, should be 
granted a passage to their own country, and the married men, lorty-six in number, should 
remain on the island provided they took the oath ol allegiance to the States-general. 
This bloodless contest was attended by one tragic circumstance, for the wife of the 
Governor (Gasper de Melo), apprehensive of his disgrace, poisoned him. 
