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They are a fine race, with strongly-marked Papuan features, frizzly hair, and brown complexions. The Goram language is spoken also at the east end of Ceram, and in the adjacent islands. It has a general resemblance to the languages of Ceram, but possesses a peculiar element which I have not met with in other languages of the Archipelago.
In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are about a dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the inhabitants, and exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any order is received from the Dutch Government, when, being backed by a higher power, they show a little more strict authority.
All the fine tropical fruits are as much cultivated productions as our apples, peaches, and plums, and their wild prototypes, when found, are generally either tasteless or uneatable. The people of Matabello, like those of most of the Mahometan villages of East Ceram and Goram, amused me much by their strange ideas concerning the Russian war.
Looking at my whole voyage in this vessel from the time when I left Goram in May, it will appear that rely experiences of travel in a native prau have not been encouraging. We were always close braced up, always struggling against wind, tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that would scarcely sail nearer than eight points from the wind.
The natives of Matabello are almost entirely occupied in making cocoanut oil, which they sell to the Bugis and Goram traders, who carry it to Banda and Amboyna. The rugged coral rock seems very favourable to the growth of the cocoa-nut palm, which abounds over the whole island to the very highest points, and produces fruit all the year round.
We had therefore all the disadvantages, and none of the advantages, of this west monsoon, which I was told would insure me a quick and pleasant journey. I was delayed at Kissa-laut just four weeks, although after the first three days I saw that it would be quite useless for me to stay, and begged the Rajah to give me a prau and men to carry me on to Goram.
We had been already eight days among the reefs and islands of Waigiou, coming a distance of about fifty miles, and it was just forty days since we had sailed from Goram. Immediately on our arrival at Muka, I engaged a small boat and three natives to go in search of my lost men, and sent one of my own men with them to make sure of their going to the right island.
A parallel case to this is the occurrence, in the small islands of Goram, Matabello, Ké, and Aru, of several distinct species of Euploea and Diadema, having broad bands or patches of white, which do not exist in any of the allied species from the larger islands.
The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were fifteen large praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats from Ceram, Goram, and Ke. The Macassar cargoes are worth about £1,000. each, and the other boats take away perhaps about £3,000, worth, so that the whole exports may be estimated at £18,000. per annum.
In every direction men were bringing in poles, bamboos, rattans, and the leaves of the nipa palm to construct or repair the walls, thatch, doors, and shutters of their houses, which they do with great celerity. Some of the arrivals were Macassar men or Bugis, but more from the small island of Goram, at the east end of Ceram, whose inhabitants are the petty traders of the far East.
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