whatever with the Malay languages.
Jan. 6th.-The small boats being finished, we sailed for Aru at 4 P.M., and as
we left the shores of Ke had a line view of its rugged and mountainous character;
ranges of hills, three or four thousand feet high, stretching southwards as far as
the eye could reach, everywhere covered with a lofty, dense, and unbroken
forest. We had very light winds, and it therefore took us thirty hours to make the
passage of sixty miles to the low, or flat, but equally forest-covered Aru Islands,
where we anchored in the harbour of Dobbo at nine in the evening of the next
day.
My first voyage in a prau being thus satisfactorily terminated, I must, before
taking leave of it for some months, bear testimony to the merits of the queer old-
world vessel. Setting aside all ideas of danger, which is probably, after all, not
more than in any other craft, I must declare that I have never, either before or
since, made a twenty days' voyage so pleasantly, or perhaps, more correctly
speaking, with so little discomfort. This I attribute chiefly to having my small
cabin on deck, and entirely to myself, to having my own servants to wait upon
me, and to the absence of all those marine-store smells of paint, pitch, tallow,
and new cordage, which are to me insupportable. Something is also to be put
down to freedom from all restraint of dress, hours of meals, &c., and to the
civility and obliging disposition of the captain. I had agreed to have my meals
with him, but whenever I wished it I had them in my own berth, and at what
hours I felt inclined. The crew were all civil and good-tempered, and with very
little discipline everything went on smoothly, and the vessel was kept very clean
and in pretty good order, so that on the whole I was much delighted with the trip,
and was inclined to rate the luxuries of the semi-barbarous prau as surpassing
those of the most magnificent screw-steamer, that highest result of our
civilisation.