aradise, in return for which they give chiefly knives, arrack, tobacco,
coloured cottons, brass wire, ornaments for the arms, etc.

These boats return to their vessels as soon as they have procured a
cargo, of which the pearls form the most valuable portion. The trepang
obtained here is only considered as third-rate; that from the Tenimber
group second, and from Australia first-rate.

BIRDS OF PARADISE.

The birds of Paradise, which are brought from the east side of the
island, appeared to be plentiful; they are shot by the natives (from whom
the traders purchase them for one rupee each) with blunt arrows, which
stun them without injuring the plumage, and are then skinned and dried.
The natives describe them as keeping together in flocks, headed by one,
they call the Rajah bird, whose motions they follow.*

(*Footnote. This is also mentioned by Pennant in his work on the Malayan
Archipelago, published in 1800.)

During the absence of the trading boats, the rest of the crews are
employed making chinam of lime, from the coral which abounds on the
beach, which fetches a good price at Banda, where fuel is expensive.

As soon as the South-East monsoon is fairly set in, the junks are hauled
up on the western side of the sandy spit at high-water spring tides, a
sort of dam is then built round them, with bamboos, and a kind of mat the
Malays call kadgang, banked up with sand; from this the water is bailed
out by hand, so as to form a dry dock in which they clean and coat the
bottom with chinam which lasts till the next season.

The cargo, as it is brought in by the different trading boats, is
carefully dried and stowed away in the different storehouses on the
point.

CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES.

Of the natives of the islands we had not on this occasion an opportunity
of seeing much, but the traders on the whole gave them a good character
for honesty, and described them as a harmless race very much scattered.
They used formerly to bring their articles of barter to Dobbo, but
discontinued it within the last few years, in consequence of having been
ill-used by the Bughis. Many of them profess Christianity, having been
converted by Dutch Missionaries sent from Amboyna.

THE KI ISLANDS.

Having completed our survey of the harbour and obtained such supplies as
we could, which, from the traders only bringing with them enough for
their own consumption, did not amount to much, we sailed for the Ki
Islands; a group sixty miles