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The Ambonese soldiers of the Netherlands India manifest a courageous and warlike character; their rate of payment equals that of their European brothers-in-arms, and in the raids or skirmishes frequent throughout the wild districts of Celebes and Sumatra they play a spirited part. The burghers of Ambon show more of the Dutch element in their composition.
The sea swarms with fish, the woods teem with sago, and cultivation of the clove procures extra wages when any special purpose requires them. The Portuguese who colonised Ambon, in the zenith of their maritime power, were of vigorous stock, and the mental heritage of the island was permanently enriched by elements derived from a foreign source.
If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbe Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the Vilaine River falls.
The Spaniards began to desert to the Portuguese, arousing the suspicions of the king of Tidore. The negotiations with the Portuguese and the discord among the Castilians are minutely detailed. On February 18, 1546, those wishing to do so embarked in the Portuguese fleet, arriving at Ambón, where a number of them died, including Villalobos. They left here on May 17, going by way of Java to India.
The fiord-like Bay of Ambon flows into the heart of the fragrant Clove Island, between the peninsulas of Heitor and Léitemor, which gradually ascend from the harbour's mouth until their heights of glowing green merge into wooded mountains, behind the white town of Amboyna. This old European settlement ranks as the tiny capital of the Molucca group.
"Fifty at Theix, three hundred at the Trinite, six hundred between the Trinite and Muzillac." "Three thousand two hundred. And from Ambon to Leguerno?" "Twelve hundred." "Four thousand four hundred. And in the village around me, in the houses, the gardens, the cellars?" "Five to six hundred, general." "Thank you, Benedicite." He made a sign with his head and Benedicite went out.
The so-called Paranak of the Malay Archipelago frequently marries a native wife, and, as purity of race becomes destroyed, ancestral obligations lose their power even over the mind of the most conservative people in the world. The woods of Ambon teem with the abundant bird-life peculiar to the Moluccas.
The vivid green of one palm-clad shore burns in the gold of sunset, but the eastern side lies veiled in shadow, and as the sheltered inlet gives place to the open sea, the luminous phosphorescence of the Southern ocean bathes the rocky bastions of enchanted Ambon in waves of liquid fire.
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