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The descriptions of these latter often agree exactly with the characters of the brown indigenes of Gilolo and Ceram. It is to be especially remarked that the brown and the black Polynesian races closely resemble each other.
Why the species of the Western Islands should be smaller than those further east; why those of Amboyna should exceed in size those of Gilolo and New Guinea; why the tailed species of India should begin to lose that appendage in the islands, and retain no trace of it on the borders of the Pacific; and why, in three separate cases, the females of Amboyna species should be less gaily attired than the corresponding females of the surrounding islands, are questions which we cannot at present attempt to answer.
Saavedra reached the Moluccas in March 1528, and anchored at the Island of Gilolo, where he found the sea calm, the winds moderate, and no tempests; and he estimated the distance from thence to New Spain at 2050 leagues, or 8200 miles.
The soil is sandy, and so low under the horizon that the north star cannot be seen . The price of cloves is about double that formerly mentioned for nutmegs, but they are sold by measure, as the natives are entirely ignorant of the use of weights. Gilolo was probably the island visited by Verthema.
On leaving this place our anchor had got foul in some rock or sunken log in very deep water, and after many unsuccessful attempts, we were forced to cut our rattan cable and leave it behind us. We had now only one anchor left. Starting early, on the 4th of October, the same S.S.W wind continued, and we began to fear that we should hardly clear the southern point of Gilolo.
At three the next morning I ordered the anchor up, but the rattan cable parted close to the bottom, having been chafed by rocks, and we then lost our third anchor on this unfortunate voyage. The day was calm, and by noon we passed the southern point of Gilolo, which had delayed us eleven days, whereas the whole voyage during this monsoon should not have occupied more than half that time.
Some vessels from Gilolo and Batchian came also to trade with them, and a few days later they received a considerable stock of cloves from the king of Tidor. This king invited them to a great banquet which he said it was his custom to give when a vessel or junk was loaded with the first cloves.
Couto, his continuator, comprehends all these islands under five different groups. To the first belong the Moluccas. The second archipelago comprises Gilolo, Moratai, Celebes, or Macassar, &c. The third group contains the great isle of Mindinao, Soloo, and most of the southern Philippines.
The fact that so many of the islands between New Guinea and the Moluccas such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit.
In Halmahera, or Gilolo, a large island to the west of New Guinea, a wizard makes rain by dipping a branch of a particular kind of tree in water and then scattering the moisture from the dripping bough over the ground.
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