masters from
Amboyna reside, and the people are nominally Christians, and are to some
extent educated and civilized. I could not get much real knowledge of
the customs of the Aru people during the short time I was among them,
but they have evidently been considerably influenced by their long
association with Mahometan traders. They often bury their dead, although
the national custom is to expose the body an a raised stage till it
decomposes. Though there is no limit to the number of wives a man may
have, they seldom exceed one or two. A wife is regularly purchased from
the parents, the price being a large assortment of articles, always
including gongs, crockery, and cloth. They told me that some of the
tribes kill the old men and women when they can no longer work, but I
saw many very old and decrepid people, who seemed pretty well attended
to. No doubt all who have much intercourse with the Bugis and Ceramese
traders gradually lose many of their native customs, especially as these
people often settle in their villages and marry native women.

The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were
fifteen large praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats
from Ceram, Goram, and Ke. The Macassar cargoes are worth about L1,000.
each, and the other boats take away perhaps about L3,000, worth, so that
the whole exports may be estimated at L18,000. per annum. The largest
and most bulky items are pearl-shell and tripang, or "beche-de-mer,"
with smaller quantities of tortoise-shell, edible birds' nests, pearls,
ornamental woods, timber, and Birds of Paradise. These are purchased
with a variety of goods. Of arrack, about equal in strength to ordinary
West India rum, 3,000 boxes, each containing fifteen half-gallon
bottles, are consumed annually. Native cloth from Celebes is much
esteemed for its durability, and large quantities are sold, as well as
white English calico and American unbleached cottons, common crockery,
coarse cutlery, muskets, gunpowder, gongs, small brass cannon, and
elephants' tusks. These three last articles constitute the wealth of the
Aru people, with which they pay for their wives, or which they hoard
up as "real property." Tobacco is in immense demand for chewing, and
it must be very strong, or an Aru man will not look at it. Knowing
how little these people generally work, the mass of produce obtained
annually shows that the islands must be pretty thickly inhabited,
especially