The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

416 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [cHAr.four extra men to accompany me to Ternate, for which place westarted on the afternoon of the 20th.We had to keep rowing all night, the land breezes being tooweak to enable us to sail against the current. During theafternoon of the 21st we had an hour's fair wind, which soonchanged into a heavy squall with rain, and my clumsy men letthe mainsail get taken aback and nearly upset us, tearing thesail, and, wliat was worse, losing an hour's fair wind. The nightwas calm, and we made little progress.On the 22nd we had light head-winds. A little before noonwe passed, with the assistance of our oars, the Paciencia Straits,the narrowest pai't of the cliannel Vjetween Batchian and Gilolo.These were well named by the early Portuguese navigators, asthe currents are very strong, and there are so many eddies thateven with a fair wind vessels are often quite unable to passthrough them. In the afternoon a strong north wind (deadahead) obliged us to anchor twice. At night it was calm, andwe crept along slowly with our oars.On the 23rd we still had the wind ahead, or calms. We thencrossed over again to the mainland of Gilolo by the advice ofour Gani men, who knew the coast well. Just as we got acrosswe had another northerly squall with rain, and had to anchoron the edge of a coral reef for the night. I called up my menabout three on the morning of the 24th, but there was no windto help us, and we rowed along slowly. At daybreak there wasa fair breeze from the south, but it lasted only an hour. All therest of the day we had nothing but calms, light winds ahead, andsqualls, and made very little progress.On the 25th we drifted out to the middle of the channel, butmade no progress onward. In the afternoon we sailed and rowedto the south end of Kaida, and by midnight reached the village.I determined to stay here a few days to rest and recruit, and inhopes of getting better weather. I bought some onions andother vegetables, and plenty of eggs, and my men baked freshsago cakes. I went daily to my old hunting-ground in searchof insects, but with very poor success. It was now wet, squallyweather, and there appeared a stagnation of insect life. Westayed five days, during which time twelve persons died in thevillage, mostly from simple intermittent fever, of the treatmentof which the natives are quite ignorant. During the whole ofthis voyage I had suffered greatly from sun-burnt lips, owing tohaving exposed myself on deck all day to look after our safetyamong the shoals and reefs near Waigiou. The salt in the airso affected them that they would not heal, but became excessivelyjDainful, and l)led at the slightest touch, and for a longtime it was with great difficulty I could eat at all, Vjeing obligedto open my mouth very wide, and jDut in each mouthful viiththe greatest caution. I kept them constantly covered with ointment,which was itself very disagreeable, and they caused mealmost constant pain for more than a montli, as they did not