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The Mahometans allege that these birds come from Paradise, and therefore call them the birds of God. Besides cloves, the Molucca islands produce ginger, rice, sago, goats, sheep, poultry, popinjays, white and red figs, almonds, pomegranates, oranges and lemons, and a kind of honey which is produced by a species of fly less than ants.
"In the geographical department," said Duperrey, "we would propose to verify or to rectify, either by direct, or by chronometrical observations, the position of a great number of points in different parts of the globe, especially among the numerous island groups of the Pacific Ocean, notorious for shipwrecks, and so remarkable for the character and the form of the shoals, sandbanks, and reefs, of which they in part consist; also to trace new routes through the Dangerous Archipelago and the Society Islands, side by side with those taken by Quiros, Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook; to carry on hydrographical surveys in continuation of those made in the voyages of D'Entrecasteaux and of Freycinet in Polynesia, New Holland, and the Molucca Islands; and particularly to visit the Caroline Islands, discovered by Magellan, about which, with the exception of the eastern side, examined in our own time by Captain Kotzebue, we have only very vague information, communicated by the missionaries, and by them learnt from stories told by savages who had lost their way and were driven in their canoes upon the Marianne Islands.
The, voyager, setting forth from the straits of Gibraltar, circumnavigating the African headlands and Cape Comorin, and sailing through the Molucca channel and past the isles which bore the name of Philip in the Eastern sea, gave the hand at last to his adventurous comrade, who, starting from the same point, and following westward in the track of Magellaens and under the Southern Cross, coasted the shore of Patagonia, and threaded his path through unmapped and unnumbered clusters of islands in the Western Pacific; and during this spanning of the earth's whole circumference not an inch of land or water was traversed that was not the domain of Philip.
He had been to the Hebrides, to New Guinea, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, and had succeeded in finding an important point on the western coast of Papua, where the establishment of a Scotch colony seemed to him easy, and its prosperity certain. A good port on the Molucca and Philippine route must attract ships, especially when the opening of the Suez Canal would have supplanted the Cape route.
We had been informed by one of the merchants at Amsterdam that when we should come to the island of Solo, one of the group of the Molucca Islands, we would find pearls as large as clove's eggs, but Thedori did not encourage us when we hinted to him our desire to possess some of these marvels. They were only to be found, he said, in very deep water, and this was not the season to obtain them.
As soon as the first was over the merchants packed their unsold wares and journeyed to the next. At the fairs were found drugs and spices, cottons and silks from the East, skins and furs from the North, wool from England, and other products from Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. By this name we may mean Persia, Arabia, India, China, or the Molucca Islands, where the choicest spices still grow.
In this voyage, contrary winds beat us up and down for a considerable time among the islands in the Straits of Molucca. No sooner were we clear of those rugged seas, but we perceived our ship had sprung a leak, which obliged us to put into the river Cambodia, which lies northward of the Gulph, and goes up to Siam.
In the end of 1511, Albuquerque sent three ships to the islands of Banda and Molucca, under command of Antonio de Breu and Francis Serrano, with an hundred and twenty men.
He returned to England in the month of May, 1580, after a voyage which occupied him nearly three years; bringing home with him great riches, and having made most favourable arrangements with the king of the Molucca Islands. His success was followed up by Cavendish and others in 1600.
I was now very anxious to get some account of the transports, which, under the command of Lieutenant Shortland, the agent, had left Port Jackson on the 14th of July, 1788, and which I was sorry to understand had not been in this bay: for I thought it highly probable, that as their route was to the northward, by the Molucca Islands and Batavia, they would certainly touch here in their way home.
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