CERAM. [ c h a p . xxv.
to St. Petersburg, and to other parts of Europe, including
a few weeks in London, and had then come out to the
East, where he had been for some years trading and
speculating in the various islands. He now spoke Dutch,
French, Malay, and Javanese, all equally well; English
with a very slight accent, but with perfect fluency, and a
most complete knowledge of idiom, in which 1 often tried
to puzzle him in vain. German and Italian were also
quite familiar to him, and his acquaintance with European
languages included Modern Greek, Turkish, Eussian, and
colloquial Hebrew and Latin. As a test of his power, I
may mention that he had made a voyage to the out-of-the-
way island of Salibaboo, and had stayed there trading a
few weeks. As I was collecting vocabularies, he told me
he thought he could remember some words, and dictated
a considerable number. Some time after I met with a
short list of words taken down in those islands, and in
every case they agreed with those he had given me. He
used to sing a Hebrew drinking-song, which he had learned
from 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 about the people
he had met and the places he had visited.
In most of the villages of this part of Ceram are schools
and native schoolmasters, and the inhabitants have been
long converted to Christianity. In the larger villages
chap. xxv.] NATIVE CHRISTIANS. 77
there are European missionaries; but there is little or no
lexternal difference between the Christian and Alfuro
villages, nor, as far as I have seen, in their inhabitants.
The people seem more decidedly Papuan than those of
Gilolo. They are darker in colour, and a number of them
have the frizzly Papuan hair; their features also are harsh
I and prominent, and the women in particular are far less
■ engaging than those of the Malay race. Captain Van der
I Beck was never tired of abusing the inhabitants of these
I Christian villages as thieves, liars, and drunkards, besides
I being incorrigibly lazy. In the city of Amboyna my friends
■ Doctors Mohnike and Doleschall, as well as most of the
European residents and traders, made exactly the same
complaint, and would rather have Mahometans for servants,
even if convicts, than any of the native Christians.
One great cause of this is the fact, that with the Mahometans
temperance is a part of their religion, and has become
so much a habit that practically the rule is never transgressed.
One fertile source of want, and one great incentive
to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one
class, but absent in the o th e rb u t besides this- the Christians
look upon themselves as nearly' the equals of the
Europeans, who profess- the same religion, and as far
superior to the followers of Islam* and are therefore prone
to despise work, and to endeavour t® live by trade, or by
cultivating their own land. I t need hardly be said