arrived on board to see our papers and collect a port fee (with
no receipt offered), while surreptitiously asking for alcohol. The
fishermen in canoes came with gifts of bananas and papayas. They
offered to fish near us all night to protect us from robbers. After a
peaceful night we visited Saleman, a village across the water. One
dirt road runs along the shore by three densely wooded mountains,
all over 5,000 feet. The shiny dome of a mosque rose over thatch
roofs, a huge slit drum outside the door to beat at prayer time.
Children paddled in from school in outriggers. A man climbed a
coconut palm and dropped green drinking coconuts to us. The
kids surrounded us, all smiles, practicing their English. Only some
of the girls had covered their hair—this village, too, was home to
both Muslims and Christians.
Our visit to Bandaneira in the Banda Islands was tranquil, too—
long forgotten was the bloody clash between religious factions in
1999 that exploded in Ambon on Pulau Seram to the north and
spread south to Banda. Whale Song lay to anchor with stern warps
on the shore of Gunung Api, a soaring volcanic cone. Across the
bay, the waterfront and town hummed. From the 17th to 19th
centuries this was the center of the fabulously profitable shipments
of nutmeg believed to be a potent cure for the pestilences of
medieval Europe. The shipments of nutmeg and clove, first in
Portuguese hands and then Dutch, turned the Netherlands into
a major power. The behemoth of the 1611 Dutch fortress still
overlooks the throngs milling in a local market, where we had the
first taste of the legendary durian fruit. Its reputedly revolting smell
lily
(lily)
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