7 2 BAT CHIAN. [ c h a p . x x iv . I
but having all the time a vague dreamy idea that I might
put my hand on another one, I lay wonderfully still, not
turning over once all night, quite the reverse of my
usual habits. The next day we reached Ternate, and
I ensconced myself in my comfortable house, to examine
all my treasures, and pack them securely for the voyage
home.
CHAPTER XXV.
CERAM, GORAM, AND THE MATABELLO ISLANDS.
(OCTOBER 1809 TO JUNE 1860.)
T LEFT Amboyna for any first visit to Ceram at three
o’clock in the morning of October 29th, after having
been delayed several days by the boat’s crew, who could
not be got together. Captain Van der Beck, who gave me
a passage in his boat, had been running after them all day,
and at midnight we had to search for two of my men who
had disappeared at the last moment. One we found at
supper in his own house, and rather tipsy with his parting
libations of arrack, but the .other was gone across the bay,
and we were obliged to leave without him. We stayed
some hours at two villages near the east end of Amboyna,
at one of which we had to discharge some wood for the
missionaries’ house, and on the third afternoon reached
Captain Van der Beck’s plantation, ¡situated at Hatosua,
in that part of Ceram opposite to the island of Amboyna.
This was a clearing ip flat and rather swampy forest, about
twenty acres in extent, and mostly planted with cacao and