kept waiting in the dark and cold for two hours. When at length they came they
were scolded by their master, but only in a bantering manner, and laughed and
joked with him in reply. Then, just as we were starting, one of the strongest men
refused to go at all, and his master had to beg and persuade him to go, and only
succeeded by assuring him that I would give him something; so with this
promise, and knowing that there would be plenty to eat and drink and little to do,
the black gentleman was induced to favour us with his company and assistance.
In three hours' rowing and sailing we reached our destination, Sedingole, where
there is a house belonging to the Sultan of Tidore, who sometimes goes there
hunting. It was a dirty ruinous shed, with no furniture but a few bamboo
bedsteads. On taking a walk into the country, I saw at once that it was no place
for me. For many miles extends a plain covered with coarse high grass, thickly
dotted here and there with trees, the forest country only commencing at the hills
a good way in the interior. Such a place would produce few birds and no insects,
and we therefore arranged to stay only two days, and then go on to Dodinga, at
the narrow central isthmus of Gilolo, whence my friends would return to
Ternate. We amused ourselves shooting parrots, lories, and pigeons, and trying
to shoot deer, of which we saw plenty, but could not get one; and our crew went
out fishing with a net, so we did not want for provisions. When the time came
for us to continue our journey, a fresh difficulty presented itself, for our
gentlemen slaves refused in a body to go with us; saying very determinedly that
they would return to Ternate. So their masters were obliged to submit, and I was
left behind to get to Dodinga as I could. Luckily I succeeded in hiring a small
boat, which took me there the same night, with my two men and my baggage.
Two or three years after this, and about the same length of time before I left
the East, the Dutch emancipated all their slaves, paying their owners a small
compensation. No ill results followed. Owing to the amicable relations which
had always existed between them and their masters, due no doubt in part to the
Government having long accorded them legal rights and protection against
cruelty and ill-usage, many continued in the same service, and after a little
temporary difficulty in some cases, almost all returned to work either for their
old or for new, masters. The Government took the very proper step of placing
every emancipated slave under the surveillance of the police-magistrate. They
were obliged to show that they were working for a living, and had some
honestly-acquired means of existence. All who could not do so were placed upon
public works at low wages, and thus were kept from the temptation to peculation
or other crimes, which the excitement of newly-acquired freedom, and
disinclination to labour, might have led them into.